Status Updates From Amen: what prayer can mean ...

"Having recognized that there is no potency to the supernatural pill we've been swallowing, will we lose the strength its placebo effect once gave us? Will we find ourselves paralyzed by fear? Will we unleash unforeseen levels of violence because we are no longer afraid of divine retribution? Will the very real consolation we have known disappear when we accept that its source is imaginary?"

"Through the ages, those who bravely expressed dissent, pressing and prodding Christianity forward, looked to their fellow humans as they argued their ideas. A greater compassion was their guiding principle, and that lies as a single thread through all their work....If our religions cannot call us there, then I want nothing more to do with them."