Hucksters prey on gullible people. The religious have no exclusive patent on gullibility, although they tend to pretty trusting. And, with about three quarters of Americans calling themselves religious, it is not surprising that there are so many gullible people, willing to trust someone. But trust is not all bad. In order to succeed, you need to be willing to fail. Trust nobody and you die lonely.
It may be foolish to believe that some entity cares whether we live or die, but the rest of it, especially the rule book that comes along with religion, ain't too shabby. Without our religiously based moral code, we would all still be wild animals.
You can divide people up by believers on one side and non-believers on the other, but I find it useful to divide another way, which comes too pretty much the same thing. Those who are religious believe that man is inherently bad, and thus needs a deity to keep him in line, and then to forgive him his sins.
Then come the atheists and sundry non-believers, who have to believe that man is inherently good, and thus we will treat each other well when the chips are down. This group includes all leftists, statists, socialists and commies of all stripes.
Then come those who crave power over the rest of us, who believe in nothing at all, beside themselves and their ability to game the system.
Personally, I know that there is no deity who (or which) has any interest in whether or not we live well or die a horrible death, and I know with certainty there is no afterlife, but you can list me firmly in group number one. Where are you?
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