I have never once seen God bail anyone out of any dicey situation. The last reported time was Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, and now the historians tell us the story of Israeli enslavement was a crock â?? implying that so was the parting of the Red Sea.

God certainly turned his back on the slaves, on the Jews in the concentration camps and on the children of Iraq.

Yet this myth persists by constant repetition that God will unfailingly come to the rescue.

There is nobody here but us chickens when it comes to rescue. We have to get ourselves out of our own scrapes. Contrary to popular opinion, religion is the last thing we need to make this a better world.

The other irresponsibility problem with religion is that it leads people to imagine that life here on earth is unimportant. What counts is the eternal hereafter. There is almost no evidence there is an eternal hereafter. Even if there were, surely looking after earth properly would be good practice for looking after heaven.