When I was very young, I lived in southern (largely Catholic) Germany, and, as the culture, unlike that of the U.S, was very nearly monolithic, with nearly everyone understanding and accepting the same morals and ethics. I went to a Catholic church most of the time, and was sent to a Catholic "Kindegarten", meaning a sort of nursery school rather than an introduction to the education system, which was run by an order Nuns who promoted the same standards, ethics, and culture that was otherwise accepted within the society. As my mother hailed from the northern, largely protestant (Lutheran) part of Germany, she and I, o rare occasion, visited a Protestant church, which promoted more or less the same standards, ethics, and culture, though within a somewhat different framework.

When we had immigrated to the U.S, my Mother thought it appropriate to send me to various Christian denominations ranging from the relatively conservative traditional Lutheran to various not-so-conservative denominations ranging from the relatively common Southern Baptist and Methodist to the various Pentecostal and their splinter groups.

When I returned to civilian life after a post-post-graduate education as a uniformed soldier, and a stint with NASA, I subsequently married a preacher's daughter, who was educated at Grace Bible institute, and was impelled to learn the ropes of the several denominations, mostly independent churches emphasizing Bible study more than other activities common in some churches.

I quickly learned that to be "accepted" in those communities, it was helpful to learn classic Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic, so that study of the scriptural texts was from whatever early texts copies could be obtained and interpreting them as best we could in the context of the King James Version.

It's been many years since then, but I found it universally accepted that one was told the "party line" and accepted it or was not worthy of membership in that community. Oddly enough, the pressure to conform to the "party line" was not applied from the pulpit, but, rather, from the "inner circle" of whichever congregation we attended. I remember the emphasis on "Creationism," among other things that seemed to contradict most of what I'd learned in public school and at the universities. Every where I turned, the push was to believe things of which there was no tangible evidence, despite much tangible evidence to the contrary, though it was supported by widely accepted science.

Denial of strictly faith-based beliefs has never been my position. I've always believed that there exists a path by means of which one could reconcile the apparent contradictions between Religion and science. Everywhere I've been, however, I've encountered the same resistance to updating religious doctrine to fit accepted archaeology, based on widely accepted science, such as the discovery that, by the time that Joshua and his troops arrived at Jericho, the city had lain abandoned for over two centuries, which might explain why "the walls came tumbling down."

I've never denied the existence of a supreme being, though I've often encountered the same anti-science bent that Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler encountered in the 16th century. Consequently, I've taken a somewhat dim view of "organized religion" as an industry, intended to interpose itself between the lay public and their shekels. I found the "organized religion" model to have morphed from one of observing reality and interpreting it for the uneducated masses, to one of applying the observation that one could avoid performing productive work by promulgating and protecting interpretation of what had been observed centuries before, though perhaps not understood at the time. I see the Scriptures as being a somewhat historical text with a generous smattering of allegory and parables, though fictitious, harboring great and valuable truths about the nature of man, nature, and the human condition ... something which pure science often cannot do.

I've also observed the behaviors of Western churches and missionary organizations in foreign lands, telling the people in cultures with millennia of history that theirs was wrong and that they should adopt the one being promoted. This same behavior has spilled over into the practices of government and industry, in each case for the purpose of promoting its own interests. Isn't that curious?

RE