This passage is typical: "Clearly the announcement of God's death was as world-shaking as it was false - trumpets blaring, news bellowed from the rooftops, drums thundering in an orgy of premature rejoicing. I've no reason to doubt that Jeremy Leggatt's translation from the French is apt and accurate, but almost every sentence contains dramatic flourishes, florid rhetoric, elaborate metaphors, exaggerations, hyperbole - eventually it becomes tedious. Surely the lesson is that the capacity for exploitation, violence and cruelty is buried deep within human nature, whatever religious or political system we employ. There have been empires with only rudimentary religion, such as the Mongols before they became Muslim. We have had anti-theist regimes that try to eliminate religion - Communist Russia or Cambodia under Pol Pot, for example. But what Onfray wilfully ignores is the double truth that this is not the only aspect of the religious record and that no atheist system has been better. No believer can deny that religion's record is often blood-stained and cruel. Similarly, many of his condemnations are clearly justified. 'A strong case for removing all the remnants of Judeo-Christian ideology from our secular culture.'-Freedom from Religion Foundation.
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