'Religion as a Tool of the State' [8/10]

[ringmasterrob]

* thegreatcritique.wordpress.com/2006/07/31/religion-a-tool-of-the-state/ *

The latest article from Naselus, in a more serious vein than his previous contributions. Please offer any constructive criticisms along with your rating out of ten in here.

[P.S: This is the first ratings topic for the new system we are working in to replace the front page ratings which were inaccurate. All comments in here must be constructive and have a point, you must comment if you wish to review out of 10, the average score will be put in the topic title].

[ringmasterrob]

For the first 'serious' offering from Naselus I think this article is excellent, although a lot of it is deduction and guesswork then there is a great deal of his conclusions I found myself agreeing with. It's insightful, well written and concise. Overall I feel there could be a little more in the way of evidence for some of what he says, but that's a minor quibble with an otherwise top notch article:

8/10

[Naselus]

A truly marvelous piece. Deep, insightful, intuitive, it brought a tear to my eye to see such a beautifully reasoned article of deductive reasoning, laced with dark ironies and thrilling sub-plots. A must read. We are surely all looking forward to more work from this author. And what a fabulously good-looking, intelligent, gifted master of language he is! Surely everyone would like to bow down at his feet and proclaim their unworthiness to even look upon him.

To be honest, I probably should have gone through the article a couple more times, added a few bits and re-worked a couple of premises, but it's still pretty good for something I wrote on the NS forums at 2:30 in the morning.

[HStorm]

As a theory it's excellent with some marvellous, thought-provoking ideas, but as an article it's brought down just a little as it reads like what it is - an expansive forum post. I well understand the reasons why it wasn't possible, but it would've helped if Nas had had the chance to redraft it into a full article. As it stands it does have a slightly skated, 'checklist' feel, especially at the start where you almost feel like the first couple of paragraphs are missing. (It would also have helped if all the spelling and punctuation mistakes had been edited.)

Seven out of ten, although if Ruzl gets round to redrafting it, I wouldn't hesitate to upgrade it to a nine.