Bertrand Russell breaks it down.

"Breaks it down" being the correct and fancy academic philosophy term for it.

Plus, he's just *rockin'* the pipe.

"My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard religion as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes.

A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue."