clipped from: assethost01a.iterasi.net   
"I'll be sitting on a plane, and I'll tell the person next to me I'm a religion professor -- and do you know what happens?" The speaker was Ron Cameron, biblical scholar and former chairman of the religion department at Wesleyan University. We were at a hotel-suite book party last fall, courtesy of HarperCollins, for one of Cameron's pals, Burton L. Mack of the School of Theology at Claremont.

"What happens is that whoever's sitting next to me will start giving me their opinions about religion!" Cameron fumed. "Can you believe it? If I were a brain surgeon, nobody would be giving me their opinions about how to do brain surgery!"

"Isn't religion people's attempt to connect with what's out there -- or in here?"

"No!" thundered Cameron, a short, bearded man with spectacles whose face was turning purple with emotion. "Religion is a social way of thinking about social identity and social relationships!"