On Organized Religion and Prophets in History… 

Zoroastrian Eternal Flame at the Fire Temple in Yazd, Central Iran. Photograph Source: Adam Jones – CC BY-SA 2.0

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” — Carl Sagan

Religious prophets...