Beyond Atheism: The Religion Illusion

Excellent Beauty

“Atheism doesn’t really get at the heart of the matter. It is not that there are no gods or goddesses, but rather that there are no religions. What we call religion is people engaged in various rituals at various times of the year and at various stages of their lives, wearing various ritualistic clothing, and uttering various words and phrases. But this is all a kind of vast pretending, a pretending so complete that most of us cannot even see the pretense, a pretense fueled solely by our genetic makeup and our group membership.” — Eric Dietrich

This week our featured book is Excellent Beauty: The Naturalness of Religion and the Unnaturalness of the World, by Eric Dietrich. To kick the feature off, we are happy to present an excerpt from the eighth chapter of Excellent Beauty: “Beyond Atheism: The Religion Illusion.”

Don’t forget to enter to win a free copy of the book in our book giveaway!

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