I am, I hope, never offensive by accident.

Well, I'll put it this way: you can certainly say belief in God makes people behave worse. That can be proved beyond a doubt.

The obsession with gold, actually and politically, occurs among those who regard economics as a branch of morality. Gold is solid, gold is durable, gold is rare, gold is even (in certain very peculiar circumstances) convertible. To believe in thrift, solidity and soundness is to believe in some way in the properties of gold.

There are many, many discrepant views within the Shia theology about what's the proper role of religion in society or in the State, should it rule now, should it claim to govern people in the here and now, or should it wait until the Messiah, the 12th Imam, comes back and would it only be then appropriate for religious rule to bring about a world of universal justice and vindication.

Nonintervention does not mean that nothing happens. It means that something else happens.

Arguments that explain everything... explain nothing

We have lived in a world where the discoveries of physics and genetics are far more awe-inspiring, as well as infinitely more liberating, than the claims of any religion.