I began to understand. “A Faustian bargain...,” I said. “The Faustian bargain,” said the girl. “All the church had to do to gain the universe was sel… - Dan Simmons

Aenea smiled but her eyes still glistened. “Humans have been waiting for Jesus and Yahweh and E. T. to save their asses since before they covered those asses with bearskins and came out of the cave,” she said. “They’ll have to keep waiting. This is our business...our fight...and we have to take care of it ourselves.”

Sol found their tracts the usual combination of double talk and navel lint-gathering common to most religions.

After fifty-five years of dedicating his life and work to the story of ethical systems, Sol Weintraub had come to a single, unshakable conclusion: any allegiance to a deity or concept or universal principal (sic) which put obedience above decent behavior toward an innocent human being was evil.