I doubt that religion can survive deep understanding. The shallows are its natural habitat. Cranks and fundamentalists are too often victimised as scapegoats for religion in general. It is only quite recently that Christianity reinvented itself in non-fundamentalist guise, and Islam has yet to do so.

Those who wish to base their morality literally on the Bible have either not read it or not understood it.

Quantum mechanics, that brilliantly successful flagship theory of modern science, is deeply mysterious and hard to understand. Eastern mystics have always been deeply mysterious and hard to understand. Therefore, Eastern mystics must have been talking about quantum theory all along.

Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

It is important not to confuse race and religion.

Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.

I read novels for entertainment rather than for edification, so I tend not to read the sort of novels that are said to illuminate the human condition.