.. now that we're all squared away on who we are, and we're all happy with that, I'd like to get some opinions on this...

Earlier on in this thread, someone raised an issue that I think should have been given a lot closer examination.

1) A lot of the people who rant, rave, and burn flags, are acting on what they've been told by authority figures. Such people are vulnerable to manipulation, because they can't examine the facts for themselves, either because they can't read, and/or societal conditioning forbids it.

2) If you were to ask a Shia muslim "Who reveals the will of Allah to you?", the reply would probably indicate a mullah does so. If you asked the same queston of a Sunni muslim, I think the reply would be something to the effect that each of the faithful must listen to their heart, so that they might hear for themselves what Allah choses to reveal. It would be major self-agrandisement, maybe even an insult to The Divine One, to presume to tell anyone what the Will of Allah is.

3) The Gutenburg Bible marked a major turning point in the course of Christianity. Previously, the only copies of the Bible were laboriously hand-copied, in Latin, by monks who dedicated their lives to this task, in service of God. With the invention of the printing press, suddenly copies of the Bible became widely available, in the language of the people. The Bible was used as a textbook to teach people to read. No longer was the Bible the exclusive property of the clergy! People could now read the texts for themselves, and draw their own conclusions as to what it meant. This led to the split of Christendom into those who accepted the word of the clergy as the revealed Word of God, and those who believed that God is revealed to each individual in their own way. It would be major self-agrandisement, maybe even an insult to The Almighty, to presume to tell anyone what the Will of God is.

(...pull the pin...casually toss grenade over shoulder while strolling out of the room...)

So... are the Shia and the Roman Catholics labouring under severe delusion? Are the Sunni and the Protestants only different in the name they give to their Divinity?

Discuss among yourselves.