Oppression lays down blood-lust. It lays it down like a wine. - Martin Amis

One recalls John Updike's argument: the only evidence for the existence of God is the collective human yearning that it should be so.

The 20th century, with its scores of millions of supernumerary dead, has been called the age of ideology. And the age of ideology, clearly, was a mere hiatus in the age of religion, which shows no sign of expiry. Since it is no longer permissible to disparage any single faith or creed, let us start disparaging all of them. To be clear: an ideology is a belief system with an inadequate basis in reality; a religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatever. Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful. It is straightforward — and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if He cared for humankind, He would never have given us religion.

Love is blind; but it makes you see the blind man; teetering on the roadside . . .