But am I correct in reading between the lines of your comment the suggestion that religion is the best, if not the only, possible fount of morality? I hope I am wrong in this, but if I am right, let me say now that nothing can be farther from the truth. Morality is only within the reach of the heretic and the skeptic, for the dogmatist, believing she already has possession of “the Truth”, will not strive for it any more but will even shun the core of any sensible morality – doubt. (If religious and dogmatic people are not so sure about many things, I’m sure they wouldn’t have committed the atrocities they have in history.)

And by the way, there is a fundamental error in one of Tan’s main point; he said that “religion is wrong only when it becomes exclusivist.” But Christianity is exclusivist. If it will allow other routes to salvation, it will violated Christ’s own words, “I am the way, the truth and the life: no one cometh to the Father BUT BY ME,” not to mention a lot of what Paul said. So there you have it, the founders of Christianity are exclusivists and, in the case of Saul of Tarsus and Titus, dogmatists. What’s to stop other Christians from following their example? Or are we to twist the words of Scriptures to fit the liberal spirit of the times? Personally, I’m fine with that.

arguably, alot of the actions that have been attributed to the roman church actually served the countries that used it as an excuse. for the philippines, i'd blame spain specifically for abuses.

Generically, some colonial powers sucked (spain is the worst), and some didn't (england is arguablly the best).

to prove that the roman church is guilt for being "duplicitous… etc", they had to have spearheaded these thing.

at worst, they didn't stop it. but that doesn't make the church evil. it means the church is/was weak, beholden to earthly political powers.

RE: selective memory
i dunno about the "selects the memories about preserving scientific knowledge" part. all knowledge is set aside, for new knowledge. science does it as well…

why is it that the roman church is suddenly the caretaker of ALL knowledge. that is a huge burden to bear, no institution will ever successfully do that.

i think the EX POST expectation that all knowledge should be preserved is too high a standard for anything.

Example: from this point on, do we expect literally everything that exists now will still be around 100 years from now?

what about the notion of progress?

Besides, it seems to me that "religiosity" is the effect of childhood mental abuse, indoctrination and brain washing that goes on in private Catholic schools, and really, even in the public schools.

Kids who grow up in secular societies turn out in more balanced distributions with many being non believers in organized religion.

Human survival is itself a prime directive type of value. If humans "ought" to survive it is necessary that they know what "IS". I concede what is necessary is not often sufficient, though my argument now is really that Religion is not necessary, whereas Science definitely is.

Morality itself, as I have declared recently, is the purview of Democracy, which has no theology, is not allowed to choose a theology because there are so many.

Thus, it appears that Religion without Science is neither sufficient nor necessary to human survival. Perhaps it was in the past, but not any more.

There is simply no parity between Science and Religion. The latter is going out. It is obsolete. That does not mean human beings will lose their sense of awe and wonder at the Universe, or stop being philosophical, deep and moral. It's just that they won't use the Crutch of Illogical Faith and Superstition.

It is "selective memory" because said institution only selects the memories which present itself as preserving scientific knowledge. What's not being said or presented are "memories" of destroying knowledge that had scientific applications (such as herbal remedies) because it is "witchcraft". And history chronicles what happened to those accused of "witchcraft".

Duplicitous, manipulative, and scheming because, at a global level its frequent interventions in actions that allowed it to advance at the expense of other belief systems not just through the cross but with the sword as well. Locally, the duplicity is best described by Jose Rizal in his novel Noli Me Tangere – which cost Rizal his life as well.