QUOTE : I cannot, of course, prove that there is no supervising deity who invigilates my every moment<br />and who will pursue me even after I am dead. (I can only be happy that there is no evidence for<br />such a ghastly idea, which would resemble a celestial North Korea in which liberty was not just<br />impossible but inconceivable.) But nor has any theologian ever demonstrated the contrary. This<br />would perhaps make the believer and the doubter equal—except that the believer claims to know,<br />not just that God exists, but that his most detailed wishes are not merely knowable but actually<br />known. Since religion drew its first breath when the species lived in utter ignorance and<br />considerable fear, I hope I may be forgiven for declining to believe that another human being can<br />tell me what to do, in the most intimate details of my life and mind, and to further dictate these<br />terms as if acting as proxy for a supernatural entity. This tyrannical idea is very much older than <br />P a g e | 5 of 29<br />Christianity, of course, but I do sometimes think that Christians have less excuse for believing, let<br />alone wishing, that such a horrible thing could be true.