Number one, Nov. 10 -- We can start by recognising two things, however uncomfortable the very pious may find it to live with the knowledge.

All gods are human inventions. This does not mean that it is always wrong to worship them, or some of them, or one of them. Societies and whole civilisations are partly built on myths.

Once the complex cultural interests of a society describe the attributes of its god(s), and people begin to deify them, they are deemed to exist, and they gain their authority as gods, albeit sometimes very slowly.

Religion is the enterprise that manages and regulates the world of gods and their devotees. Number two: All religions start as cults. The great Abrahamic (so-called revealed) religions of our time are no e...