It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure there is something wrong here. This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it. The sailor does not pray for wind, he learns to sail. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to the garage makes you a car.
Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike. The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next. Maybe this world is another planet's hell. The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence. The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.