Religion

A woman from the ancient pre-Islamic Yazidi sect in Iraq was stoned to death because she wanted to convert to Islam. Footage of the stoning emerged and the result was that three trucks full of explosives and one full of petrol were driven into the centre of the Yazidi settlement and detonated, killing hundreds. Acts like this reinforce my belief that religion is the major force for evil in the world today and throughout human history. I don't understand those who think that mass murder will make their god happy. People use religion as an excuse to treat others badly. All this is done in the name of a supernatural being that they believe to exist. I'll finish with a quote from Bertrand Russell

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.