“Perceptions of the modern masons ranged from their being a group of harmless old men who liked to play dress-up... all the way to an underground cabal of power brokers who ran the world. the truth, no doubt, was somewhere in the middle.”

“Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised. In the end, though, we are all proclaiming the same thing. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for the power that created us.”

“The Last Supper is supposed to be thirteen men. Who is this woman?"Everyone misses it, our preconceived notions of this scene are so powerful that our mind blocks out the incongruity and overrides our eyes.”

“When in doubt, just spit it out. That all challenges can be overcome by speaking the truth, no matter how itcomes out.”

“But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning, or the man who does not respect its awesome power?”

“Every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith―acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school. Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors.Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that we have proof the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.”

“Anyone who said power was not addictive had never really experienced it.”