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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his
  >  only means to gain it. 

Not only not true, it isn't even reasonable!   Most really amazing knowledge 
is gained through insight and transcendence.  Reason only serves a secondary 
role as a filter for such knowledge.  



> It is this characteristic 
> more than any other that makes a cult, a religion, a nation, or any 
> other group, dangerous to individual freedom. 

That is, of course, unless individual freedom IS the cult or IS the religion. 
 It's possible but not likely.  Like all religions, individual freedom's 
existence is embodied in every decision every day.  Religions in the ordinary 
sense don't go about dismissing themselves - rather even martyrdom is 
prefered.  
Islam, Christianity, and such are not besprinkled with "But wait, you can't 
expect me to  ..."   From the homesteading paradigm every concession to "You 
can't expect me to hoe a garden, saw wood, milk a cow, scythe grass, can 
beans ... 
etc."  is a laying down of some individual freedom in that the alternatives 
make one dependent on others and worse, on the fickle corpus of society.

Don't worry about religions and cults and governments limiting our freedom, 
we do a much better job of it ourselves.

James