1 by Gore Vidal
"The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is
monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament,
three anti-human religions have evolved—Judaism, Christianity, Islam.
These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal—God is the
Omnipotent Father—hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those
countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The
sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from
everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all
creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for
their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics
that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose."
—"America First? America
Last? America at Last?", Lowell Lecture, Harvard University, 1992
2 by Gore Vidal
I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the
human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — good
people, yes, but any religion based on a single...frenzied and virulent
god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is
not a religion but an ethical and educational system that has worked
pretty well for twenty-five hundred years.
- Appendix, At Home, 1988.
