I read this yesterday in an old (September 2006) copy of a magazine called The Sun. It from an interview with Sam Harris, who wrote a controversial book called The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason:
The real liability of religion is that it allows perfectly sane people to believe en masse what only a lunatic would believe on his or her own.
In the same edition, an excerpt from Pema Chodren’s Practicing Peace In Times of War:
It’s like what Zen Master Suzuki Roshi once said. He looked out at his students and said, “All of you are perfect just as you are, and you could use a little improvement.” That’s how it is. You don’t start from a view of “I’m fundamentally messed up, and I’m bad, and therefore I have to get myself into shape.” Rather the basic situation is good; it’s sound and healthy and noble, and there’s work that we need to do because we have ancient habits, which we’ve been strengthening for a long time, and it’s going to take awhile to unwind them.
And Francis Dunnery says:
Late night I crucified an old belief of mine.
Great song. Thanks. Gotta love Francis Dunnery!
Francis is such an underrated talent. The guy really should be a household name.