What he did have was a loud voice and no respect for tyrants. Tyrants hate people like that. - Robert A. Heinlein

When had a slave religion proved anything but an aid to the conqueror? Slaves needed a wailing wall; they went into their temples, prayed to their gods to deliver them from oppression, and came out to work in the fields and factories, relaxed and made harmless by the emotional catharsis of prayer.

“I said God but you know what I mean!”
“I do indeed. You are indulging in theology; I would rather see you take laudanum. Maureen, when anyone talks about ‘God’s will’ or ‘God’s intentions’ or Nature’s intentions if he is afraid to say ‘God,’ I know at once that he is selling a gold brick. To himself, in some cases, as you were just doing.”

“People have a funny habit of taking as ‘natural’ whatever they are used to—but there hasn’t been any ‘natural’ environment, the way they mean it, since men climbed down out of trees.”