The debate is over

[Tempus]

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There's nothing fantasy-like about the existence of various religious peoples, the history of their religions, and their practices. They all actually exist in reality and if you're planning to criticise them I think you ought to understand them first. Of course, if you're critcising general things, like the validity of belief without evidence that's fine. If you're criticising the Bible on some point, however, you'd better actually be familiar with the Bible.

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Firstly, let me assert that my criticism of religion runs along the lines of scientific method and finds no response based on evidence. Secondly, I am reasonably familiar with religion, having been raised with it, compelled to go through catechism, and, further, having studied it through comparative religion courses.

I should probably start by apologising; my excessive use of the word 'you' in my post makes it seem like I'm addressing you and assuming you're ignorant, which wasn't my intention. I don't disagree with anything you've said here.

The existence of UFO nuts doesn't compel me to spend much time on their bullshit, either. Given a finite amount of time in a given day, I will spend mine on what is demonstrably real rather than the pursuit of the promise of life after death, which, when it comes down to it, is what monotheism is about and the main reason it attracts people like a bad infomercial.

I agree that it's not worth looking into the specifics of something like astrology and learning all its ins and outs if it can't even be established that it works to begin with -- it'd be a colossal waste of time. Pointing out that there's no reason to believe astrology works, that its predictions are accurate at a rate consistent with what's expected from chance, etc, are valid criticisms. What I was getting at was that making claims about the specifics of that belief system or its history requires research, regardless of whether you or I think that's a useful way to spend time. If someone wants to claim that astrologers think Mars represents envy (or whatever), that astrology was started by people who thought themselves witches, etc, they need to actually do their research, they can't just rely on popular stereotypes in lieu of proper research. There are ways to be wrong about astrology, just as there are ways to be wrong about the sequence of events in Harry Potter books. I'm not trying to suggest you don't already know this (I think we probably actually see eye to eye on this), I'm just trying to clarify my point.

And, regarding your comment on there being nothing fantasy-like about the "practices" of religious peoples, you may want to restate that.

I meant the practices themselves exist, that there are facts to be known about them and there are ways to be ignorant of them and their intended effects. That doesn't mean I think the aims of these practices necessarily make any sense. Perhaps I could've been more clear about that.