God is a pure absurdity, invented by hypocrytes to dominate stupid ignorants (and they want to remain it...)
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Islam is the best example :
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with this delirium, accepted and then loved by the members of a new sect, a pure clever ignorant invented a "religion of peace" that invaded and killed populations from Spain to China...
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with this delirium, accepted and then loved BUT "negociated" to serve the hunger for power, the members of new "sub-sects" have killed each other (87% of the muslims have been assinated by... other very very tolerant muslims...)
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with this delirium, accepted and installed "in the law" a man of 80 does NOT understand that his new bride, a girl 10 years old, goes to the courts to beg crying for divorce... "she must be fucked as I desire!!! as Aicha was by the prophet"
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with this delirium, accepted by millions that see "runing around a stone in the Kaaba" as a high cause to survive in paradise, the Arabs became "anti-science", and antiprogress, learned perfectly to lie and to despise "the all humanity that is NOT as us, muslims"

In my humble opinion, islam is the worst catastroph that came into "arabic comunities".

In my humble opinion, today in 2010, to be born as christian/scientologist/muslim etc is a pure disaster for the brain...

Oh I forgot to say : I WAS muslim....

Prof. Grayling, the illiterate peasants living several thousand years ago received revelations. How can such illiterate peasants conceive such "Holy Books" who contents are being studied, scrutinised, debated and producing phDs from so many universities? Is there any man-made literature and manual post-the "Holy Books" era have so much impact on human beings?

If religion is invented by humans which it is then the logical question to ask yourself is "why did humans invent it?". Atheists claim that the theory of evolution somehow negates religion. If things came into existence through evolution then so did religion... hence atheists must ask themselves: "if religion is a product of evolution then what biological function does religion serve in society?". The fact that religion employs fantasy and superstition is not a reason to dismiss it. It is possible that fantasy and superstition that exist within the bounds of reason are things which serve some sort of beneficial biological function in peoples lives. When I speak of fantasy and superstition existing within the bounds of reason I am not suggesting that fantasies and superstition are entities which are entirely composed of reason-styled thought.

Aaah Yes, once religion is fully out of the way we will be in the broad sunny uplands of reason and being good for er well.... the sake of goodness. Articles like this always remind me of John Gray's observation that atheism is a late Christian cult, based on the supremely Christian (and Marxist) idea that by changing people’s beliefs, you change their behaviour.

For Nawawimohamad: Archaeology has shown comprehensively that there was no exodus from Egypt by the Israelites, why are these infallible revelations so insistent that there was an exodus? When a holy book makes a statement pertaining to be a fact, and that supposed fact turns out to be wrong on three counts, 1) No Exodus 2) Cities in Canaan show no signs of being conquered and sacked at time of supposed Exodus 3) Monotheism did not become established among the Israelites until the Babylonian exile, then this holy book looks very much like the work of illiterate peasants. The question then is not one of how can these books have so much influence if they are written by illiterate peasants, the question is how far must we bend over backwards to avoid acknowledging the facts simply so that we can write PhD's about them? That people in this day with all the evidence we have still write PhD's about these books does not prove that they are true, nor are they proven by the influence that they have, no, all that is proven by this is that people will not consider evidence which does not support what they believe. In fact, Michael Shermer has demonstrated that this is exactly what people do, they only look evidence which supports their existing points of view. Faith exploits this unfortunate human attribute.

Good article Professor Grayling.