Is religion a force for good? The evidence of history and the evidence of current events cast doubt on the truism.

Dewey repudiated what he called militant atheism. He felt that people have innate religious qualities, such as compassion for sufferers, an urge to improve life, and a sense of awe before the mysteries of existence. However, by the standards of conventional religion, Dewey was an atheist.

Historian Larry Hise notes in his book Pro-Slavery that ministers 'wrote almost half of all defenses of slavery published in America.' He listed 275 men of the cloth who used the Bible to prove that white people were entitled to own black people as work animals.

As editor of the largest newspaper in West Virginia, I scan hundreds of reports daily . . . and I am amazed by the frequency with which religion causes people to kill each other. It is a nearly universal pattern, undercutting the common assumption that religion makes people kind and tolerant.