Religious Nuttery

The last item on the back of the envelope for tonight is 'religious nuttery.' I am very interested in the subject of religious nuttery. So are you. I intend to discuss this subject, but it seems to me that first we need to narrow it a bit. I narrow the subject of religious nuttery to 'Western Religion.' I know a fair amount about 'western religion' whereas most other religions elude me, so I will exclude those other religions from consideration. By 'western religion' I mean the mono-theism invented by the Jews (or the Egyptians - take your choice). I also define all the various branches of the Judeo-Egyptian religion as being part of western religion. Both Christianity and Islam, as well as Judaism, fall within the category of 'western religion.' Furthermore, all varients thereof fall within that category.
 
In the spirit of this classification it is possible to mention the class of 'Eastern Religion.' Eastern religion, as I see it, includes Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shinto, etc. These excellent religions fall outside the category of 'western religion' and as such they will not be discussed except anecdotally. I would like to mention here, however, that I consider the Eastern religions to be 'psychological religions' whereas I consider Western religions to be 'surface religions.' By that I mean Eastern religions tend to be internal in nature whereas Western religions tend to be external in nature. To make the matter clearer, I see Eastern religions as personal religions whereas I see Western religions as public religions. This is the crux of the problem insofar as Western religion is concerned, as I see it.
 
So this discussion will center on the relative value of what I see as two alternative approaches to religion: the private and the public; the internal and the external; the yin and the yang.
 
There is yet another category to be defined, which is a recent category: Science. The old (traditional) religions sought to explain everyday stuff in terms of religion. Furthermore those old religions undertook to explain ultimate beginnings. They explained everything. This was their appeal. Those religions created 'myths' which 'explained' ultimate questions. Nowadays those old religious explanations have been superceded by scientific explanations.
 
This  fact allows us to place Eastern religions and Western religions in the same general category and to create a new category, the category of Science. So nowadays we have two general categories of thought which perport to 'explain things:' the category of religion and the category of science. 
 
(Darn this is fun!)