Over many years I have pursued these questions with Ian McEwan, whose body of fiction shows an extraordinary ability to elucidate the numinous without conceding anything to the supernatural. He has subtly demonstrated that the natural is wondrous enough for anyone. It was in some discussions with Ian, first on that remote Uruguayan coast where Darwin so boldly put ashore and took samples, and later in Manhattan, that I felt this essay beginning to germinate. I am very proud to have sought and received his permission to dedicate the ensuing pages to him.
REFERENCES
CHAPTER TWO
RELIGION KILLS
[p. 17–18] Mother Teresa was interviewed by Daphne Barak, and her comments on Princess Diana can be found in Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1996.
[p. 24] The details of the murder of Yusra al-Azami in Bethlehem can be found in “Gaza Taliban?,” editorial, New Humanist 121:1 (January 2006), http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/volume121issuel_ comments.php?id=1860 _0 _ 40 _ 0 _C. See also Isabel Kershner, “The Sheikh’s Revenge,” Jerusalem Report, March 20, 2006.
[p. 27] For Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s letter to Osama bin Laden, see http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/31694.htm.
[p. 33] For the story of the born-again Air Force Academy cadets and MeLinda Morton, see Faye Fiore and Mark Mazzetti, “School’s Religious Intolerance Misguided, Pentagon Reports,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2005, p. 10; Laurie Goodstein, “Air Force Academy Staff Found Promoting Religion,” New York Times, June 23, 2005, p. A12; David Van Biema, “Whose God Is Their Co-Pilot?,” Time, June 27, 2005, p. 61; and United States Air Force, The Report of the Headquarters Review Group Concerning the Religious Climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy, June 22, 2005, http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/ AFD-051014-008.pdf
[p. 33] For James Madison on the constitutionality of religious establishment in government or public service, see Brooke Allen, Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), pp. 116–117.
[p. 35] For Charles Stanley and Tim LaHaye, see Charles Marsh, “Wayward Christian Soldiers,” New York Times, January 20, 2006.
CHAPTER FOUR
A NOTE ON HEALTH, TO WHICH RELIGION CAN BE HAZARDOUS
[p. 45] For the Bishop Cifuentes sermon, see the BBC-TV production Panorama, aired June 27, 2004.
[p. 46] The Foreign Policy quotation comes from Laura M. Kelley and Nicholas Eberstadt, “The Muslim Face of AIDS,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2005, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/ story/cms.php?story_id=3081.
[p. 47] For Daniel Dennett’s criticisms of religion, see his Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Viking Adult, 2006).
[p. 57] For the Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins quote, see their Glorious Appearing: The End of Days (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), pp. 250, 260.
[p. 59] Pervez Hoodbhoy’s comments on the Pakistani nuclear tests can be found in Free Inquiry, spring 2002.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE METAPHYSICAL CLAIMS OF
RELIGION ARE FALSE
[p. 68] E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage, 1966), p. 12.
[p. 69] Father Copleston’s commentary is from his History of Philosophy, vol. iii (Kent, England: Search Press, 1953).
CHAPTER SIX
ARGUMENTS FROM DESIGN
[pp. 81– 83] On the evolution of the eye and why it argues against intelligent design, see Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design (New York: Times Books, 2006), p. 17. The emphasis is in the original. See also Climbing Mount Improbable, by Richard Dawkins (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), pp. 138–197.
[p. 87] For the University of Oregon “irreducible complexity” study, see Jamie T. Bridgham, Sean M. Carroll, and Joseph W. Thornton, “Evolution of Hormone-Receptor Complexity by Molecular Exploitation,” Science 312:5770 (April 7, 2006): pp. 97–101.
[p. 93] For Stephen Jay Gould’s quotation on the Burgess shale, see his Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), p. 323.
[p. 95] For the University of Chicago human genome study, see Nicholas Wade, “Still Evolving, Human Genes Tell New Story,” New York Times, March 7, 2006.
[p. 96] Voltaire’s statement—Si Dieu n’existait pas, i1 faudrait l’inventer—is taken from his “À l’auteur du livre des trois im- posteurs,” Epîtres, no. 96 (1770).
[p. 96] Sam Harris’s observation on Jesus being born of a virgin can be found in his The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005).
CHAPTER SEVEN
REVELATION: THE NIGHTMARE OF THE
“OLD” TESTAMENT
[p. 102] For Finkelstein and Silberman’s work, see Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Touchstone, 2002).
[p. 103] For Sigmund Freud on religion’s incurable deficiency, see The Future of an Illusion, translated by W. D. Robson-Scott, revised and newly edited by James Strachey (New York: Anchor, 1964).
[p. 104] The Thomas Paine quotation is from The Age of Reason in Eric Foner, ed., Collected Writings (Library of America, 1995).
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE “NEW” TESTAMENT EXCEEDS THE
EVIL OF THE “OLD” ONE
[p. 110] For H. L. Mencken’s assessment of the New Testament, see his Treatise on the Gods (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 176.
[p. 118] For C. S. Lewis’s quotation beginning “Now, unless the speaker is God,” see his Mere Christianity (New York: Harper- Collins, 2001), pp. 51–52.
[p. 119] For C. S. Lewis’s quotation beginning “That is the one thing we must not say,” see Mere Christianity, p. 52. For his quotation beginning “Now it seems to me obvious,” see p. 53.
[p. 122] For Bart Ehrman, see his Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York: HarperCollins, 2005).
CHAPTER NINE
THE KORAN IS BORROWED FROM BOTH
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN MYTHS
[p. 124] For why Muslims must recite the Koran in its original Arabic, see Ziauddin Sardar and Zafar Abbas Malik, Introducing Mohammed (Totem Books, 1994), p. 47.
[p. 136] The Karen Armstrong quotation comes from her Islam: A Short History (New York: Modem Library, 2000), p. 10.
CHAPTER TEN
THE TAWDRINESS OF THE MIRACULOUS AND THE DECLINE OF HELL
[pp. 145–146] The Malcolm Muggeridge and Ken Macmillan anecdotes regarding Mother Teresa are included in my Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Verso, 1995), pp. 25–26.
[p. 147] The information on Monica Besra’s tumor and recovery comes from Aroup Chatterjee, Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict (Calcutta: Meteor Books, 2003), pp. 403–406.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“THE LOWLY STAMP OF THEIR ORIGIN”: RELIGION’S CORRUPT BEGINNINGS
[p. 164] Mark Twain’s “chloroform in print” comes from his Roughing It (New York: Signet Classics, 1994), p. 102.
[p. 165] On the possible utility of religion in curing disease, see Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Viking Adult, 2006).
[p. 165] For Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1922), see http://www.bartleby.com/196/.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A CODA: HOW RELIGIONS END
[p. 170] For the story of Sabbatai Sevi, see John Freely, The Last Messiah (New York: Viking Penguin, 2001).
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DOES RELIGION MAKE PEOPLE BEHAVE BETTER?
[p. 177] The information on William Lloyd Garrison can be found in his letter to Rev. Samuel J. May, July 17, 1845, in Walter M. Merrill, ed., The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison (1973) 3:303, and in The Liberator, May 6, 1842.
[p. 178] The information on Lincoln comes from Susan Jacoby, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004), p. 118.
[p. 181] Bar
bary ambassador Abdrahaman’s justification for slavery is included in my Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 128.
[p. 191] The material on Rwandan genocide is derived primarily from Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998) pp. 69–141.
[pp. 201–202] The philosophy of “Gudo” and the Nichiren declaration are excerpted from Brian Victoria’s Zen at War (Weatherhill, 1997), pp. 41 and 84, respectively; the Japanese Buddhist wartime proclamations are from pp. 86–87.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IS RELIGION CHILD ABUSE?
[p. 220] Mary McCarthy, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (New York: Harcourt, 1946).
[p. 221] Joseph Schumpeter’s model of “creative destruction” can be found in his Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976), pp. 81–86.
[p. 224] For Maimonides on circumcision, see Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 64–66 [emphasis added].
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AN OBJECTION ANTICIPATED : THE LAST-DITCH “CASE” AGAINST SECULARISM
[p. 239–240] On the Vatican’s endorsement of Nazi Germany, see John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York: Viking Adult, 1999).
[p. 242] On the misrepresentation of Einstein, see William Waterhouse, “Misquoting Einstein,” in Skeptic vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 60–61.
[p. 250] For H. L. Mencken’s social Darwinism, see his Treatise on the Gods (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 176.
[p. 250] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, 1994).
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A FINER TRADITION: THE RESISTANCE
OF THE RATIONAL
[p. 262] Einstein’s statement on “Spinoza’s god” can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht’s Doubt: A History (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 447. See also Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (New York: Avon, 1984), p. 502.
[p. 263] The Heinrich Heine quotation can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 376. See also Heine as cited in Joseph Ratner’s introduction to The Philosophy of Spinoza: Selections from His Works (New York: Modern Library, 1927).
[p. 264] The information about Pierre Bayle can be found in Ruth Whelan, “Bayle, Pierre,” in Tom Flynn, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006).
[p. 265] The Matteo de Vincenti quotation can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 287. See also Nicholas Davidson, “Unbelief and Atheism in Italy, 1500-1700,” in Michael Hunter and David Wootton, ed., Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1992), p. 63.
[p. 266] Benjamin Franklin’s quotation on the lightning rod can be found in The Autobiography and Other Writings (New York: Penguin, 1986), p. 213.
[p. 268] Hume’s quotation can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 351.
[p. 268] The information on Paine and his religious views comes from Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, pp. 356–57.
[p. 271] The Albert Einstein quotation beginning “It was, of course, a lie” can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 447. See also Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffinan, eds., Albert Einstein, the Human Side: New Glimpses from His Archives, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 43. The quotation beginning “I do not believe in the immortality of the individual” can be found in Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 447. See also Dukas and Hoffman, Albert Einstein, the Human Side, p. 39.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
IN CONCLUSION: THE NEED FOR
A NEW ENLIGHTENMENT
[p. 282] For the Robert Lowell quotation, see Walter Kirn, “The Passion of Robert Lowell,” New York Times, June 26, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/books/review/26KIR- NL.html.
INDEX
abortion, Ref1, Ref2
child abuse and, Ref1
Abraham, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5
child abuse and, Ref1
and immorality of religion, Ref1
acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), Ref1, Ref2
Adam, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
Adam Bede (Eliot), Ref1
adultery, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5
and sayings and deeds of Jesus, Ref1
Afghanistan, Ref1, Ref2
and destructiveness of religion, Ref1, Ref2
health care in, Ref3
Aflaq, Michel, Ref1
afterlife, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
Age of Reason (Paine), Ref1
agnositics, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5
Ahaz, King of Judah, Ref1
Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, Ref1
Air Force Academy, U.S., Ref1
Albright, William, Ref1
Alembert, Jean Le Rond, Ref1, Ref2
Alexander I, King of Macedonia, Ref1, Ref2
Amazon basin civilizations, Ref1
Anaxagoras, Ref1, Ref2
Andrewes, Lancelot, Ref1
Anglicans, Anglican Church, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6, Ref7
Eastern beliefs and, Ref1
Animal Farm (Orwell), Ref1, Ref2
Antelope, Oreg., Ref1
Antietam, Battle of, Ref1, Ref2
Anti-Goeze (Lessing), Ref1
apartheid, Ref1, Ref2
apocalypse, Ref1
looking forward to, Ref1, Ref2
and relationship between morality and religion, Ref1
Apology (Plato), Ref1, Ref2
archaeology, Ref1, Ref2
Arendt, Hannah, Ref1, Ref2
Aristophanes, Ref1
Aristotle, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5
Armstrong, Karen, Ref1, Ref2
Ashram, Ref1
Ashura, Ref1
Aslan, Reza, Ref1
Assumption, Ref1, Ref2
astrology, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5
Athanasius, Saint, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
atheists, atheism, Ref1
and destructiveness of religion, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
of Hitchens, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5
rational resistance and, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
and relationship between morality and religion, Ref1, Ref2
totalitarianism and, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5
atomism, Ref1, Ref2
atonement, Ref1, Ref2
Auden, W. H., Ref1, Ref2
Augustine, Saint, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6
Augustus, Emperor of Rome, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
authority, argument from, Ref1
Ayer, A. J., Ref1
Azami, Yusra al-, Ref1
Aziz, Tariq, Ref1
Bacon, Francis, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
Baden-Powell, Robert, Ref1
Baghdad, Ref1, Ref2
Bamiyan, Buddha statues at, Ref1
Baptists, Baptism, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
Barbary states, Ref1
Barbelo, Ref1
Barbie, Klaus, Ref1
Bathylychnops exilis, Ref1
Bayle, Pierre, Ref1, Ref2
BBC, Ref1, Ref2
Beg, Mirza Aslam, Ref1
Beirut, Ref1
Belfast, Ref1, Ref2
Belgrade, Ref1
believers, beliefs, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
arrogance of, Ref1
design arguments and, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
and emancipation of India, Ref1
rational resistance and, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
relationship between morality and, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5
tolerance of, Ref1, Ref2
Bellow, Saul, Ref1, Ref2
Bengal, Ref1
Ben-Gurion, David, Ref1, Ref2
Bernal, J. D., Ref1
Besra, Monica, Ref1
Bethlehem, Ref1
biblical fictions and, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
destructiveness of religion in, Ref1
Bhagavad Gita, Ref1
Bible, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6, Ref7, Ref8, Ref9
author of, Ref1
on fulfilling prophecy, Ref1
hadiths and, Ref1
Hitchens’s childhood and, Ref1
rational resistance and, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
revelation arguments and, Ref1
see also New Testament; Old
Testament
bin Baz, Abd al-Aziz, Ref1
bin Laden, Osama, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
Blackburn, Simon, Ref1
blacks, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
Mormons and, Ref1
see also racism; slaves, slavery blood sacrifice, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6
child abuse and, Ref1
and immorality of religion, Ref1, Ref2
Bloomberg, Michael, Ref1
Bombay, Ref1
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Ref1, Ref2
Book of Mormon, Ref1, Ref2
Borges, Jorge Luis, Ref1
Bosnia, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
Branch, Taylor, Ref1, Ref2
Brazil, Ref1
Brideshead Revisited (Waugh), Ref1
Brodie, Fawn, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
Brothers Karamazov, The (Dostoyevsky), Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
Brown, John, Ref1
Buddha, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
Sri Lanka and, Ref1
Buddhists, Buddhism, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
in Japan, Ref1
Sri Lanka and, Ref1
Bukhari, Ref1
Burgess shale, Ref1, Ref2
Bush, George W., Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
Butler, Bishop, Ref1
Butler, Samuel, Ref1
Calas, Jean, Ref1
Calcutta, Ref1
Calvin, John, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
Calvinists, Calvinism, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
Cambodia, Ref1, Ref2
Cambrian explosion, Ref1
Caprichos, Los (Goya), Ref1
Captive Mind, The (Milosz), Ref1
cargo cults, Ref1
Castro, Fidel, Ref1
Catholics, Catholicism, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6, Ref7, Ref8, Ref9, Ref10, Ref11, Ref12
and blaming Jews for Jesus’s Crucifixion, Ref1, Ref2
child abuse and, Ref1, Ref2
and destructiveness of religion, Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5