I am continually amazed by the credence given to religious claims in the intellectual community; and, as a human being, i am appaulled by the psychological damage caused by religious teachings-damage that often takes years to counteract.
Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or prison.