re: #44 LudwigVanQuixote

I do not believe human evil is caused by religion any more than it’s caused by science or atheism or the availability of sticks, stones, or firearms.

It is caused, as Kurt Vonnegut demonstrated most eloquently in his masterpiece “Galpagos”, by our big brains getting us into trouble all the time.

“Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people’s actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be. So the Galpagos Islands could be hell in one moment and heaven in the next, and Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food, shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next—and on and on.”