Organized religion is all about power and always has been. It’s how the “Haves” enslaved the “Have-nots” before television came along. It’s also how Kings and other tyrants got people to go out and fight in their wars for them. “Don’t worry, Mr. Serf. Sure, you might get your arms and legs chopped off, or you might find a spear or arrow sticking through you. But after this painful and messy death, you’ll go to heaven, as long as you kill as many of my enemies as you can before they get you.”

One reason religion has lasted is because it gives us another justification for hating others, not that any more were needed: We already had language, nationalism, and skin color. I guess it comes in handy when you want to hate someone who looks like you, talks like you, and is a citizen as the same country as you. Now you can hate your neighbor—as long as he goes to a different church than you, or worships a different god.

If you break down all the misery that Man has caused to his fellow Man over the centuries, a good percentage of it can be traced to religious zealotry. The Crusades. The Holocaust. The Spanish Inquisition.

And if religion stinks, we don’t have to look any further than its reference manual, the bible. What a bunch of crap. You can find anything you want by “interpreting” the stories in the bible. Nazis, slave-owners, Republicans and all the other repressive, tyrannical organizations that have popped up during the last millennium have held up the bible as an example of how to live.

And it’s not even written well! It contradicts itself in hundreds of places, and many of the stories make no sense. At least not until some idiotic member of the clergy tells us laymen what it is supposed to mean. They could have used a good editor. And there are people who believe all this garbage is the “Word of God,” verbatim! These are the same people who believe you when you promise not to cum in their mouth. (Take a close look: I’ll bet you can spot traces of semen on some of their chins.)

The only good thing that can be said for the bible is that it has provided a lot of cool quotes. Some of my favorites:

• “Woe to You, Oh Earth And Sea: For the Devil Sends the Beast With Wrath, because He Knows the Time is Short. Let Him who hath Understanding Reckon the Number of the Beast. For it is a Human Number: Its Number is Six Hundred and Sixty-Six.”

Revelations is full of cool, meaningless quotes. If any section of the bible was written by someone on acid, it had to be Revelations.

• “Thou Shall not Kill.”

Ha ha ha! This has to be the funniest thing in the bible. Throughout the rest of the book, the message is to kill anyone and everyone who doesn’t worship the same god that you do. I think it’s there so that the rich and powerful could discourage the rabble from revolting and killing them.

• “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.”

Okay, so this quote isn't from the bible, as several astute readers have pointed out. But they might as well have have put this one right on the title page of the bible itself.

Of course, there are a lot of cool quotes in the writings of William Shakespeare, too—and a lot less people have died because of his words than of the bible’s.