The Pope has made a very definite statement about the need for religious tolerance, as covered a few days ago:

Vatican City, February 20 - Pope Benedict on Monday renewed calls for respect for religions and religious symbols amid ongoing tensions in the Muslim world over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

But in a clear reference to reactions to the cartoons in some Muslim countries, Benedict also said that violence was unjustifiable even when it was in reaction to religious offence.

The pontiff's words, which followed a weekend in which at least 15 Christians were killed by angry protestors in Nigeria, came in a speech to the new Moroccan ambassador to the Holy See, Ali Achour. "It is necessary and urgent that religions and their symbols be respected and that believers are not subjected to provocations that hurt their initiatives and their religious sentiments," Benedict said.

He said all believers, in whatever country, should be guaranteed the right to "follow their own freely chosen religion".

"For the last hundred years or so religion has been beset with a relentless attack. You have been told it’s the "opiate of the masses," that it’s unscientific, that it is primitive; in short, that it is a delusion.

"But beneath all these attacks on organized religion there was a more fundamental target: the spirituality of man, your own basic spiritual nature, self-respect and peace of mind. This black propaganda may have been so successful that maybe you no longer believe you have a spiritual nature but I assure you you do."

Later in the same article he goes on to say:

"When religion is not influential in a society or has ceased to be, the state inherits the entire burden of public morality, crime and intolerance. It then must use punishment and police. Yet this is unsuccessful as morality, integrity and self-respect not already inherent in the individual, cannot be enforced with any great success. Only by a spiritual awareness and inculcation of the spiritual value of these attributes can they come about. There must be more reason and more emotional motivation to be moral, etc., than threat of human discipline.

"When a culture has fallen totally away from spiritual pursuits into materialism, one must begin by demonstrating they are each a soul, not a material animal. From this realization of their own religious nature individuals can again come to an awareness of God and become more themselves."

"If one does not like the crime, cruelty, injustice and violence of this society, he can do something about it. He can become a VOLUNTEER MINISTER and help civilize it, bring it conscience and kindness and love and freedom from travail by instilling into it trust, decency, honesty and tolerance."

"As i was reading New Scientist this morning, i ran across a scientific article about the values of religion in terms of health (written by none other than Robin Dunbar, the gossip/grooming guy who is connected to the 150 number). It made me wonder about the term "religion" in academic analyses - what definition are people using? What constitutes a religion? What doesn't?

"What about in everyday language? This is a term that we throw around all the time, mostly as a way to debase others' practices. Could American TV worship really be conceptualized as religion? Baroo?

"Anyhow... that's my thought for the weekend. What other definitions of religion do y'all use? "

I like the definition in the book Scientology: Theology and Practice of a Contemporary Religion which states:

"This concept of transcendence, which means 'to go beyond,' 'to bridge' or 'to cross over,' is a fundamental characteristic of all religious belief systems and a central element in every modern approach to defining religion. Transcendence creates the connection between the natural world and the supernatural, allowing man to pass through the limitations of his biological or physical state to the place of the divine. This place may be physical, as a temple or a church, or conceptual, as an image or principle—or both."

The book is online and the section where this statement can be found is at http://www.bonafidescientolog... This applies well to my religion, Scientology, and to Buddhism.

The Scientology religion deals with the human spirit and its relationship to the universe and its Creator. It teaches that its fundamental laws of life, when applied, help people achieve a happier and more fulfilling existence as surely as an apple falls to the ground when dropped.

Scientology teaches numerous workable methods:

It also contains techniques to tackle the most serious societal problems of our age – illiteracy, drugs, crime and immorality. Scientology is something one does, it is not just a system of beliefs that one is asked to hold.

The keynote of the Scientology religion is that it deals with the human spirit and its salvation and rehabilitation. It teaches that an individual is a spirit: not a body, not a brain, not a fortuitous random conglomeration of genes and chemicals.

It is this single recognition of the nature of an individual that forms the foundation of the Scientology religion.

Throughout the ages, man has traditionally viewed himself as a spiritual being. It has only been within the last century that the materialistic idea that man is merely another animal similar to a monkey or rat has taken hold. Scientology teaches that this idea is patently false, unworkable, and acts as a barrier to a personal understanding of life. An individual little suspects how much untapped potential he or she has to create his or her own life.

Scientology directly addresses an individual's spiritual nature with answers to the age old questions of Who am I? What do I consist of? Where do I come from? Where am I going? This spiritual enlightenment leads to personal understanding of oneself and others.

"More than a system of belief, Scientology is an applied religion that plays a vital role in both the lives of its congregation and the community at large. It brings spiritual enlightenment to man by way of religious practices that advance him to higher states of spiritual ability and understanding, while providing practical solutions to every facet of day-to-day living.

Scientology is a religion in the deepest and most traditional sense, for it is concerned with no less than the full rehabilitation of man’s innate spiritual self — his capabilities, his awareness and his certainty of his own immortality — and his relationship to the divine. Scientology holds in common with many of the world’s oldest religions the belief that man was put here to work out his own salvation and that only by doing this can he fully understand his relationship to God the Creator. Scientology further holds that man is basically good and that his salvation depends upon himself, his fellow man and his attainment of brotherhood with the universe.

Unlike other efforts to help man that have tried to solve his problems for him, Scientology provides the means for an individual to become capable of solving his own problems. He is then in a position where he not only can sort out his own life, but having learned to better conditions around him, he can also effectively help others — friends, family and those he encounters in daily life.