I think one of the least attractive aspects of major religions is probably the one that helped them get to their top slot status, namely, an overriding emphasis on being right. Without the certainty involved in being right, doubt creeps in, and with doubt, tolerance, and tolerance is not an empire-building quality when it comes to thought realms. Part of the darkness of the dark ages was due to the church’s war against curiositas, the source of endless middle age allegories and sermonettes. For example: “we are to be as Odysseus’ men, who filled their ears with wax rather than be seduced by the sirens of secular philosophy.” Odysseus was always the enemy in these sermons; he was just too damned curious! Curiosity is that niggling need to know within us that seeks explanations for what we see and do in the world. It bubbles forth automatically from the well-spring of our cranium and it must be restrained if certainty is to reign. 

Faith is the muzzle of curiosity, the brainchild behind certainty, for it obliterates doubt before it has a chance to inculcate its insidious essence virus-like into our brains. Doubt whispers, “That makes no sense…” and faith then does the in-your-face door slam, wiping away all doubt. With doubt confined, certainty blossoms. How would it not? And with certainty, an ideology gains a manifest destiny to propagate itself, meme-like, unto the ends of the earth.