What's wrong with religion is that it has always enabled people like...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. And that's one of the problems with religion:

Sometimes people get all defensive if you suggest that there's nothing underpinning their faith but... faith. I guess that's the very definition of faith - something you believe that you can't prove. I am not at all bothered by religious people, those who believe in something they can't prove, if it's something that makes them feel better about themselves and their lives, or that inspires them to do good things. I'm all in favor of anything that helps people get through their days. And it's absolutely true that religious faith has inspired people to do some very good things as well as some very bad things; much of the great art, architecture and music of Western civilization was originally the product of the medieval church because people were inspired to create wonderful things soli deo gloria.

Where the wicket gets sticky is the point where somebody's faith conflicts with somebody else's, or with somebody else's lack of it -- where somebody's engraved-in-stone belief in some version of God and all the details of how God supposedly wants everybody to live turns into a government's official policies. Santorum thinks birth control is sinful and contrary to God's will. Fine. I don't. He doesn't get to legislate his faith. And very bad things happen when people decide what God wants the government to do.

And here's another thing I don't get: If there really is some universal, cosmic Truth, why are there so many religions? Why doesn't God reveal the same Truth to everybody? He could, if he's God...