iQuote

One is often told it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told, I have not noticed it ...

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward dimunition of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world ...

My own view of religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calendar; and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they become able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any other.

~ Bertrand Russell, "Why I Am Not A Christian"
taken from Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven"