Saturday, June 19, 2010

The Greatest Disaster Ever To Befall The Human Race

transcribed from FFrF.org [Freethought Radio] podcast featuring GORE VIDAL  (in telephone interview)


Annie Laurie Gaylor:  Let's get back to your very wise insight about Monotheism, Mr. Vidal. I don't think anybody has said it in quite that way... Why is Monotheism so dangerous?
Gore Vidal: Think about it... ONE God, ONE King, ONE Pope, ONE factory owner, ONE means of selling your products?  It ties it up in a tight knot that chokes everybody to death! That's why there's so little air in our society. The people wander around like sleepwalkers waiting for television to tell them what to... what to buy...what to want. I think Monotheism..  well first it's a ridiculous "ism" on the face of it...Where is this guy? (It's always a man) Where is he sitting?...
Dan Barker: Hmm
Gore Vidal: and does he like being just one? ...wouldn't he like to be two or three?...just for company?.. god knows he's self-regarding enough if you go by his textbooks.


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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... well, 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. So you see I am ecumenical in my dislike for the Book. But like it or not, the Book is there; and because of it people die; and the world is in danger -- GORE VIDAL

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