His view is word-for-word almost absolutely identical to mine. The whole spiel about all religions being equally likely or unlikely and that it'd be a pretty lousy sort of God who'd prefer one over the other and the universe being so big that God probably doesn't care if you do X, Y, or Z. Even the bit about how he'd rather spend eternity in Hell than kiss up to an abusive God. It's almost verbatim from my head. Uncanny.

That kind of idea comes up in a lot of literature... especially nineteenth-century "freethinker" literature. Here's a few quotes...

Mark Twain:

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life--hence it is a valuable possession to him.

Read the rest of the quotes from TwainQuotes.


Douglas Adams:

Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? — because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it, but on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'Fine, I respect that'.

-- taken from Douglas Adams Speaks about Religion

Terry Pratchett:
Just read Small Gods.

Isaac Asimov:

I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.

from Wikiquote