Religions should never be treated cruelly or sentimentally.

But faith must be subjected to rational discourse. No other aspect of society is allowed to proceed without intelligent and reasonable appraisal. You would not allow a surgeon or dentist to say: “Trust me.”

You want to see evidence of training and competence. You wouldn’t buy a refrigerator based on irrational assumptions. Why, then, do we allow religions to say: “These things are beyond reason. They require trust and belief.” Blind belief, however, throughout every human activity has brought disaster.

Every religion claims to have the one infallible word of God in its special book. No matter how uninspired, outdated, intolerant, contradictory and diluted over time, each holy book is presented as truth, word of God, infallible and literally accurate. Each book also tells us to kill unbelievers. Holy books never sound like the word of God.

Each generation is handed the myths, superstitions, establishment lies and misunderstandings of previous generations. But only religious hand-me-downs are exempt from change, based on advancing knowledge. Once the imaginations of men who lived in the desert centuries ago are allowed to persist unchallenged, then all sorts of ridiculous ideas begin to grow like mold in a toilet.

Today, more than one-third of Americans believe things which no rational human being should, and more than half are looking forward to destruction, violence and revenge caused by a God, who was first imagined, when darkness ruled both the world and consciousness.