[MaggieL]

Growing up as the child of a Protestant clergyman who also taught elementary science was an interesting experience.

My own "belief system" does not require insulation from my knowlege of science and mathematics. That understanding encourages me not to expect too much enlightenment from religious systems based in language...as so many are. Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem makes it clear to us that formal symbolic systems aren't even up to the task of encompassing themselves, much less the Transcendant.

The development of western organized religions, (like other memetically-based systems for aggrandizing power like "government"), are informed and mediated by information technologies, including linguistic systems and communications media....from the invention of written languge to the Roman system of couriers and roads to Gutenberg's press to the fax machine to the Internet.