Matt Ridley: The Evolution of Everything |
You can tell the story of the rise of Christianity without any reference to divine assistance. It was a movement like any other, a man-made cult, a cultural contagion passed from mind to mind, a natural example of cultural evolution.
Where people are baffled, they are often tempted to resort to mystical explanations.
The things that go well are largely unintended; the things that go badly are largely intended.
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all. It is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry to put down dissent and originality.
Henry Louis Mencken(quoted)