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Religions tend to disappear with man's good fortune.

In reality, many people let go of religion later in life.

Once religion has been dismissed by primarily an intellectual class of people, we lose the really useful social functions of religion... What replaces it might be worse than what we throw away.

I get the feeling more and more that religion is being left behind.

I say I haven't lost my religion. I've lost my ideology.

Religion has become so many different things. Religion is an economic thing for some people. Religion is a gun.

I think religion has caused so much catastrophe in the world.

Religion provides the only story that is fundamentally consoling in the face of the worst possible experiences - the death of a parent, for instance. In fact, many religions take away the problem entirely, because their adherents ostensibly believe that they're going to be reunited with everyone they love, and death is an illusion.

As long as there are religions, there are going to be people who are hiding their rottenness behind the veil of religion.

Religion has endured since the dawn of human consciousness precisely because it encompasses so much of being human. No idea has endured so long, gathered up so many disparate needs and wants and feelings, and inspired so many different paths towards understanding it.