The problem with Aquinas is the problem with most "like thinkers" is that he is right (or so he assumes) and everyone else is wrong. He knows he is right because he believes, so anyone who disagrees with him is necessarily evil. (You have to get to Descartes before you have anyone trying to work form first principles not based on Genesis, and Descartes failed miserably. See Solipsism in the dictionary.... though you can make the case this was a driving idea behind The Matrix.)

The current incarnation of this argument - or one of them anyway - centers around whether or not sexual orientation is a choice (when did you DECIDE to be hetero, and were you influenced by friends or coaches in school?) or is it genetic or teratogenic? The religious have their answer based on Genesis. So any evidence to the contrary is dismissed. (The sexually dimorphic nucleus is unknown, as only one example among many.)

The big issue is evolution. It contradicts the basis of Genesis, so it must be wrong. No evidence will ever prove it right, no one will ever move the creationists one inch from their current understanding. And when you try to discuss it with them, they resort to the "No true Scotsman" version of ad homenem attacks. "No good person" or "No true Christian" holds with evolution.

So in the end, Aquinas is just another bat to hit people over the head with. Aquinas' position is that if you agree with him, and live your life according to the precepts he follows, you will be happy and society will be the just society. That is exactly the same position of Bin Laden, except that Bin Laden backs up his opinions with explosives and death for anyone who dares disagree. Now granted, that is a big difference, perhaps even a qualitative between the two positions, but the positions are akin.

Now Aquinas probably got a lot right - most "serious thinkers" do, even if they also get a lot wrong.

So for example - your little green teabag - is a bit a Eastern religion. In the East - India, China, and a few others, man is not separate from God, but a part of God. (That is a simplification, because to explain the difference between what the Levant sees as "God" and what the East sees and the union of the Uncreated/Uncreating principle and the Uncreated/Creating principle would take all day.) That and the fact that the West has lost all understanding of the true nature of polytheisms, and what is supposed to underlie them. (You don't have to believe in the Roman gods in order to study and understand Roman mythology.)

In the East, God didn't create the world "out there" or somewhere else, but the universe is a part of God. The universe is part Vishnu in India, for example. In those traditions you don't try to "have a relationship with God" as the Christians do, you try to understand your unity with the creator. To realize "You are Truth" is just a bit of Zen. (But of course Vishnu himself is only a metaphorical stand-in for things it is hard to describe. And of course there are 3 things in the Hindu creation story that all reference the same thing... the Uncreated/Uncreating principle of existence.)

So your "evil" little teabag, is just a bit of religion from different tradition. I think will find Zen - in all its wonderful forms - is a bit beyond "pop psychology." Though Pop Psychology no doubt draws on Zen ideas, it probably also draws on Western ideas as well.

If it doesn't fit in your world view (on in Aquinas' world view) it is evil, by definition.

Augustine, not Aquinas.

But forget it, you're on a roll. :-)

I subscribe to evolution, as far as it goes. I just don't think it explains everything, as I do not think it can account for the soul, or for the Fall, both of which I believe are very real, based on my experience. I've yet to meet the person who has not suffered from sin, and I've never met a person who did not deserve to be accorded better regard than merely an animal.

The reason I subscribe to Christianity is that at heart it understands that not all is ducky with the world, or with us.

Genesis is a myth, to be certain. But I do not hold "myth" and "falsehood" to be anything like synonymous terms.

As for Mr. Paperclip, I banish him as my first act after installation, and set cherubim with flaming swords to bar his return.

I tolerate none of his guff.

Hmmm... never read Augustine,

Actually I didn't think that post took - I got the usual mu.nu error message, so there is a longer version over at TFS Magnum.

One of the things I added was a bit on science. Science does not deal in absolute truth. All of science - even the bit we use in technology - is a collection of theories postulated to explain the experimental or observational data. When a better theory comes along, it will be adopted.

Religion is not science, creationism is not scientific for any number of reasons, but there is no way an observation will ever move a creationist away from his dogma - and it is dogma not theory.

Anyway, go read the even longer version over at my site, but I will leave you with this.

If the tag on the teabag had said, "Jesus Saves" would you have dismissed it as "pop spirituality?"