The problem of suffering is: why is there the suffering we know?

To an even moderately sophisticated and well-read person it should come as no surprise that any religion at all has its hidden as well as its obvious beauties and is capable of profound and impressive interpretations. What is deeply objectionable about most of these interpretations is that they allow the believer to say Yes while evading any No.

Those who believe in God because their experience of life and the facts of nature prove his existence must have led sheltered lives and closed their hearts to the voice of their brothers' blood.

Faith means intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person.

Mundus vult decipi: the world wants to be deceived. The truth is too complex and frightening; the taste for the truth is an acquired taste that few acquire…. ….The world winks at dishonesty. the world does not call it dishonesty

Writing is thinking in slow motion.

For atheism and polytheism there is no special problem of suffering, nor need there be for every kind of monotheism.