"In fundamentalism, the sky is always falling, the world is always ending and kids like me prayed apocalyptic bedtime prayers: Lord, please no earthquakes, wars, famines or pestilence tonight. And please don’t leave me behind if my family gets raptured. Amen. Fundamentalists like to read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. When I was a kid, events both big and small foretold that the end was near: the proliferation of credit cards, Gorbachev, the year 1988, the first George Bush’s “New World Order.” Remember the public interest surrounding Y2K? Now multiply that by 1,000 and you’ll know what it felt like to be a fundamentalist in the months leading up to New Year’s Eve 1999. Eschatology is the pet hobby of fundamentalists. Nothing gets their blood pumping like a natural disaster—or just the threat of one. It’s also lucrative. You can make bank by selling apocalyptic books. Or by making movies starring Kirk Cameron."

"In a slightly less perfect world, workers in America who got the flu would not infect friends, colleagues and total strangers because their bosses would recognize the benefit to their businesses and the employees still standing when highly contagious workers are allowed to recover at home without losing a day’s pay. It’s called paid sick leave."

"Within the Christian churches, how else can we explain the obvious avoidance of so many of Jesus’ major teachings? Jesus’ direct and clear teachings on issues such as nonviolence, a simple lifestyle, love of the poor, forgiveness, love of enemies, inclusivity, mercy, and not seeking status, power, perks, and possessions: throughout history, all have been overwhelmingly ignored by mainline Christian churches, even those who call themselves orthodox or biblical. This avoidance defies explanation until we understand how dualistic thinking protects and pads the ego and its fear of change. Notice that the things we ignored above require actual change of our lifestyle, our security systems, or our dualistic thought patterns. The things we emphasized instead were usually intellectual beliefs or moral superiority stances that asked little of us: the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, the atonement theory, and beliefs about reproduction and sex. After a while, you start to recognize the underlying bias. The ego diverts your attention from anything that would ask you to change, to righteous causes that invariably ask others to change."