God’s only excuse is he doesn’t exist

“The twentieth 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 little 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.” – Martin Amis, The Second Plane