Mother Teresa was interviewed by Daphne Barak, and her comments on Princess
Diana can be found in Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1996.
The details of the murder of Yusra al-Azami in Bethlehem can be found in “Gaza
Taliban?,” editorial, New Humanist 121:1 (January 2006), http:/
www.newhumanist.org.uk/volume121issuel_comments.php?id=1860_0_40_0_C. See
also Isabel Kershner, “The Sheikh’s Revenge,” Jerusalem Report, March 20, 2006.
For Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s letter to Osama bin Laden, see http://www.state.gov
p/nea/rls/31694.htm.
For the story of the born-again Air Force Academy cadets and MeLinda Morton,
see Faye Fiore and Mark Mazzetti, “School’s Religious Intolerance Misguided, Pentagon
Reports,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2005, p. 10; Laurie Goodstein, “Air Force Academy
Staff Found Promoting Religion,” New York Times, June 23, 2005, p. A12; David Van
Biema, “Whose God Is Their Co-Pilot?,” Time, June 27, 2005, p. 61; and United States Air
Force, The Report of the Headquarters Review Group Concerning the Religious Climate
at the U.S. Air Force Academy, June 22, 2005, http://www.af.mil/shared/media
document/AFD-051014-008.pdf
For James Madison on the constitutionality of religious establishment in
government or public service, see Brooke Allen, Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding
Fathers (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), pp. 116–117. 287
For Charles Stanley and Tim LaHaye, see Charles Marsh, “Wayward Christian
Soldiers,” New York Times, January 20, 2006.
CHAPTER FOUR
A NOTE ON HEALTH, TO WHICH
RELIGION CAN BE HAZARDOUS
For the Bishop Cifuentes sermon, see the BBC-TV production Panorama, aired June
27, 2004.
The Foreign Policy quotation comes from Laura M. Kelley and Nicholas Eberstadt,
“The Muslim Face of AIDS,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2005, http:/
www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3081.
For Daniel Dennett’s criticisms of religion, see his Breaking the Spell: Religion as a
Natural Phenomenon (New York: Viking Adult, 2006).
For the Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins quote, see their Glorious Appearing: The
End of Days (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), pp. 250, 260.
Pervez Hoodbhoy’s comments on the Pakistani nuclear tests can be found in Free
Inquiry, spring 2002. CHAPTER FIVE
THE METAPHYSICAL CLAIMS OF RELIGION ARE FALSE
E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage, 1966)p. 12.
Father Copleston’s commentary is from his History of Philosophy, vol. iii (Kent,
England: Search Press, 1953). CHAPTER SIX
ARGUMENTS FROM DESIGN
On the evolution of the eye and why it argues against intelligent design, see
Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design (New York:
Times Books, 2006), p. 17. The emphasis is in the original. See also Climbing Mount
Improbable, by Richard Dawkins (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), pp. 138–197.
For the University of Oregon “irreducible complexity” study, see Jamie T. Bridgham,
Sean M. Carroll, and Joseph W. Thornton, “Evolution of Hormone-Receptor Complexity
by Molecular Exploitation,” Science 312:5770 (April 7, 2006): pp. 97–101.
For Stephen Jay Gould’s quotation on the Burgess shale, see his Wonderful Life:
The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), p. 323.
For the University of Chicago human genome study, see Nicholas Wade, “Still
Evolving, Human Genes Tell New Story,” New York Times, March 7, 2006.
Voltaire’s statement—Si Dieu n’existait pas, i1 faudrait l’inventer—is taken from his
“À l’auteur du livre des trois imposteurs,” Epîtres, no. 96 (1770).
Sam Harris’s observation on Jesus being born of a virgin can be found in his The
End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005).
CHAPTER SEVEN
REVELATION: THE NIGHTMARE OF THE
“OLD” TESTAMENT
For Finkelstein and Silberman’s work, see Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher
Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the
Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Touchstone, 2002).
For Sigmund Freud on religion’s incurable deficiency, see The Future of an Illusion,
translated by W. D. Robson-Scott, revised and newly edited by James Strachey (New
York: Anchor, 1964).
The Thomas Paine quotation is from The Age of Reason in Eric Foner, ed., Collected
Writings (Library of America, 1995).
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE “NEW” TESTAMENT
EXCEEDS THE EVIL OF THE “OLD” ONE
For H. L. Mencken’s assessment of the New Testament, see his Treatise on the Gods
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 176.
For C. S. Lewis’s quotation beginning “Now, unless the speaker is God,” see his Mere
Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), pp. 51–52.
For C. S. Lewis’s quotation beginning “That is the one thing we must not say,” see
Mere Christianity, p. 52. For his quotation beginning “Now it seems to me obvious,” see p.
53. For Bart Ehrman, see his Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed theBible and Why (New York: HarperCollins, 2005).
CHAPTER NINE
THE KORAN IS BORROWED FROM BOTH
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN MYTHS
For why Muslims must recite the Koran in its original Arabic, see Ziauddin Sardar
and Zafar Abbas Malik, Introducing Mohammed (Totem Books, 1994), p. 47.
The Karen Armstrong quotation comes from her Islam: A Short History (New York:
Modem Library, 2000), p. 10. CHAPTER TEN
THE TAWDRINESS OF THE MIRACULOUS AND THE
DECLINE OF HELL
The Malcolm Muggeridge and Ken Macmillan anec dotes regarding Mother Teresa
are included in my Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Verso,
1995), pp. 25–26.
The information on Monica Besra’s tumor and recovery comes from Aroup
Chatterjee, Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict (Calcutta: Meteor Books, 2003), pp. 403
406. CHAPTER ELEVEN
“THE LOWLY STAMP OF THEIR ORIGIN”: RELIGION’S
CORRUPT BEGINNINGS
Mark Twain’s “chloroform in print” comes from his Roughing It (New York: Signet
Classics, 1994), p. 102.
On the possible utility of religion in curing disease, see Daniel Dennett, Breaking the
Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Viking Adult, 2006).
For Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1922), see http:/
www.bartleby.com/196/. CHAPTER TWELVE
A CODA: HOW RELIGIONS END
For the story of Sabbatai Sevi, see John Freely, The Last Messiah (New York: Viking
Penguin, 2001). CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DOES RELIGION MAKE PEOPLE BEHAVE BETTER?
The information on William Lloyd Garrison can be found in his letter to Rev. Samuel
J. May, July 17, 1845, in Walter M. Merrill, ed., The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison (1973)
3:303, and in The Liberator, May 6, 1842.
The information on Lincoln comes from Susan Jacoby, Freethinkers: A History of
American Secularism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004), p. 118.
Barbary ambassador Abdrahaman’s justification for slavery is included in my
Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 128.The material on Rwandan genocide is derived primarily from Philip Gourevitch, We
Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from
Rwanda (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998) pp. 69–141.[pp. 201–202] The
philosophy of “Gudo” and the Nichiren declaration are excerpted from Brian Victoria’s
Zen at War (Weatherhill, 1997), pp. 41 and 84, respectively; the Japanese Buddhist
wartime proclamations are from pp. 86–87.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IS RELIGION CHILD ABUSE?
Mary McCarthy, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (New York: Harcourt, 1946).
Joseph Schumpeter’s model of “creative destruction” can be found in his
Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976), pp. 81–86.
For Maimonides on circumcision, see Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh:
Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press,
2005), pp. 64–66 [emphasis added].
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AN OBJECTION ANTICIPATED: THE LAST-DITCH
“CASE” AGAINST SECULARISM
On the Vatican’s endorsement of Nazi Germany, see John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope:
The Secret History of Pius XII (New York: Viking Adult, 1999).
On the misrepresentation of Einstein, see William Waterhouse, “Misquoting
Einstein,” in Skeptic vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 60–61.
For H. L. Mencken’s social Darwinism, see his Treatise on the Gods (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 176.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, 1994).
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A FINER TRADITION: THE RESISTANCE
OF THE RATIONAL
Einstein’s statement on “Spinoza’s god” can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht’s
Doubt: A History (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 447. See also Ronald W. Clark,
Einstein: The Life and Times (New York: Avon, 1984), p. 502.
The Heinrich Heine quotation can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A
History, p. 376. See also Heine as cited in Joseph Ratner’s introduction to The Philosophy
of Spinoza: Selections from His Works (New York: Modern Library, 1927).
The information about Pierre Bayle can be found in Ruth Whelan, “Bayle, Pierre,” in
Tom Flynn, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books,
2006).
The Matteo de Vincenti quotation can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A
History, p. 287. See also Nicholas Davidson, “Unbelief and Atheism in Italy, 1500-1700,” in
Michael Hunter and David Wootton, ed., Atheism from the Reformation to the
Enlightenment (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1992), p. 63.
Benjamin Franklin’s quotation on the lightning rod can be found in The
Autobiography and Other Writings (New York: Penguin, 1986), p. 213. Hume’s quotation can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 351.
The information on Paine and his religious views comes from Jennifer Michael
Hecht, Doubt: A History, pp. 356–57.
The Albert Einstein quotation beginning “It was, of course, a lie” can be found in
Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 447. See also Helen Dukas and Banesh
Hoffinan, eds., Albert Einstein, the Human Side: New Glimpses from His Archives,
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 43. The quotation beginning “I do not
believe in the immortality of the individual” can be found in Hecht, Doubt: A History, p.
447. See also Dukas and Hoffman, Albert Einstein, the Human Side, p. 39.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
IN CONCLUSION: THE NEED FOR
A NEW ENLIGHTENMENT
For the Robert Lowell quotation, see Walter Kirn, “The Passion of Robert Lowell,”
New York Times, June 26, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/books/review
26KIRNL.html.