“If you take a look at history, you will find that the understanding of what is good and evil has always existed before the individual religions. The religions were only invented by people afterwards, in order to express this idea.”

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things.But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”

“You're only two handshakes away from evil.... Maybe it's the same thing with goodness. We're never far from what's good.... It doesn't seem like such a far-fetched idea that it takes only 36 people to keep evil at bay. Just remember that all of the upheavals in world history, both good and bad, were initiated by individuals.”

“The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.”

“Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.”