The pre-history of our species is hag-ridden with episodes of nightmarish ignorance and calamity, for which religion used to identify, not just the wrong explanation, but the wrong culprit. Human sacrifices were made preeminently in times of epidemics, useless prayers were uttered, bogus miracles attested to, and scapegoats - such as Jews or heretics or witches - hunted down and burned.
Christopher HitchensWe are unlikely to cease making gods or inventing ceremonies to please them for as long as we are afraid of death, or of the dark, and for as long as we ยญpersist in self-ยญcenteredness. That could be a lengthy stretch of time.
Christopher HitchensThe thing about religion is that it's the first and the worst. The worst because it's the first.
Christopher HitchensA rule of thumb with humor; if you worry that you might be going too far, you have already not gone far enough. If everybody laughs, you have failed.
Christopher Hitchens