Excerpt #90 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
There are a number of chapels at Harvard.
At the divinity school alone, there are two.
One is in Andover Hall, the large administration and classroom building at the divinity school.
Andover Hall Harvard
The chapel at Andover is quaint.
Lots of colorful stained glass and beautiful and ornate woodwork.
The students use the small Andover Hall chapel at lunch-time to give practice services.
The Unitarian Universalists had it reserved for their use every Friday.
Andover Hall Chapel
On one of the Fridays, I gave a practice service.
The talk I gave to a group of Unitarian Universalist Harvard Divinity School students was a very early version of a talk that I would give years later, “Astonish the World, Tell the Simple Truth.”
My presentation was very well received.
Afterwards, the U.U. minister who was our advisor pulled me aside.
He said, “That was an incredible talk. Let me tell you something. Keep this to yourself. Don’t become a minister. You need to reach a larger audience.”
That was 1992, so the statute of limitations has probably run out on not telling anyone what he said to me.
For me, it was a great compliment and an affirmation of what I was thinking. For increasingly, I found the world of religion to be archaic and antiquated, a product of the infancy of our intelligence.
Religion is all bunk. – Thomas Edison
Bookstores stock many books of infinite varieties that support one religion or another, or one god or another.
Religion, unequivocally, is a booming industry.
Yet there is a significant and growing percentage of people who, for many valid reasons, want nothing to do with religion.
They are on the right side of history.