Since people are STILL on religion, let me point this out to you. The real reason most people of European descent are Christian is because Roman Emperor Constantine converted and forced everyone in the Roman empire to convert. If he had converted to Judaism, the majority here would be jewish, not Christian. Religion has as much to do with tradition and upbringing as it does with "faith".
and I personally refuse to believe that a "loving god" would be so cruel as to force everyone to prostrate themselves before him in order to ascend. mtbikemom sent me a couple pms, but this should suffice for an answer.
I know you all think I "cannot be saved" because I do not believe, but I look at religion this way:
If you were told that all the food in the world was poisoned and the only way to survive was to drink this antidote which had a side effect of making you sing songs for 2 hours a week praising the antidote and believe that everyone who didnt take the antidote was going to die. Yet, some people choose not to take the antidote, and live anyway, without any side effects. But you all take it anyway, even though you cannot see any benefit from it other than the fact that you get toigether often with people who take the same flavor antidote and spend your lives putting down people who take other flavors, or take none at all. Religion is like any business, being a good person will never be part of their plan, for if that was the case, they would be OUT of business. whenever you sell a product, you have to make people believe they cannot live without it, this is no different.
and for Reaves: Islam is an offshoot of Christianity, much like Mormonism is. The Torah and the New Testament are part of their holy books, they just believe that Mohammed is another prophet who came after Moses and Jesus (they think Jesus was a prophet, not the son of God).
As for Wheel of Time: they interact with their "creator" ofetn in the books, what do you need churches for when you can interact directly with your diety? Churches and religion are only viable when people CANNOT interact with their deity (see Children of the Light).