No, I'm not surprised at all. As Wojtek has astutely noted, the way to defeat your opponents is by using *their* arguments, not yours. It's a mug's game to debate the faithful by saying religion is irrational. For God's sake (so to speak), believers *pride* themselves on the fact that religion is far, far beyond the grasp of mundane rationality.
But to charge the faithful with being idolatrous is quite a different thing -- like waving a crucifix in a vampire's face. As you note, "For all three Abrahamic faiths, the greatest sin is ... idolatry." And the central joke of these faiths is that they themselves are idolatrous. The Christians worship Christianity; the Jews, Judaism; and the Moslems, Islam. In short, they worship themselves, not God. How blasphemous can you get? This is beyond evil -- it's pretty damn funny!
Carl
>First, in their insistence on the unknowability of God: at their heart
>is the assertion that God is not one of the gods of religion, in the
>sense of a force in the universe that can't be controlled directly but
>only by cajolery (prayer) and bribery (sacrifice). For Aquinas, e.g.,
>"in God there is neither genus nor species, therefore God cannot be
>defined"; and God is "beyond the order of all beings" (i.e, God and the
>universe don't add up to two).
>
>Second, in their rejection of religion: in the world of the Israelite
>invention (either sense) of God, religion was the guarantor of the
>stratified societies ruled by priest-kings. The God of the Hebrew bible
> condemns that society and that religion, e.g., in the decalogue (10
>commandments), the first half of which recommends atheism in regard to
>the religion of the gods, and the second half of which recommends
>anarchism in regard to the society of the priest-kings.
>
>For all three Abrahamic faiths, the greatest sin is, oddly enough,
>idolatry. They see it as acquiescing in the worship of something less
>than God, something that guarantees oppression. "I am YHWH your
>liberator, who led you out of Egypt: you shall have no gods." --CGE
>
>Carl Remick wrote:
>
> > ... The three Abrahamic faiths merit equal treatment as being insane
> > and dangerous, not to mention impious. I don't see how anyone can claim
>to
> > have a shred of respect for an unknowable God, yet claim allegiance to
>any
> > of these mutually hostile faiths with their idolatrous, presumptuous
>boasts
> > of knowing God's will. These faiths, such an endless source of woe for
> > humanity, should rightly be acknowledged as the Three Stooges of the
> > Apocalypse.
> >
> > ... I am saying that anyone who really
> > believes that there is an Almighty God beyond human ken cannot but find
> > established religion -- with its strict, precise definitions of God --
> > anything but irreligious. If you believe in God, you cannot believe
> > in religion.
_________________________________________________________________ It’s tax season, make sure to follow these few simple tips http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/PreparationTips/PreparationTips.aspx?icid=HMMartagline