Digging This Shit

I'm only about a third of the way through God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens, but so far, I'm highly enjoying the read. From chapter six:

Serious work has only just begun on the study of these impressive societies [the Mayans, etc], which grew and flourished when Moses and Abraham and Jesus and Muhammad and Buddha were being revered, but which took no part at all in those arguments and were not included in the calculations of the monotheistic faithful. It is a certainty that these people, too, had their creation myths and their revelations of divine will, for all the good it did them. But they suffered and triumphed and expired without ever being in "our" prayers. And they died out in the bitter awareness that there would be nobody to remember them as they had been, or even as if they had been. All their "promised lands" and prophecies and cherished legends and ceremonies might as well have occurred on another planet. This is how arbitrary human history actually is.

Wow, I wish I could convey opinions with that much effectiveness. Sometimes I feel imprisoned (mentally speaking) that I cannot. Anyway, for the non-religious amongst you, I highly recommend getting this book. It's one that requires slow, thoughtful reading for full comprehension of the point. A thank you to Paul Phillips for the recommendation.