The happy heathen: a teenager's escape from religion

Have you been brought up in a religious household? And do you have doubts? Could your parents, your priest, your teachers have got it all wrong? Can their tales of magic, miracles and life after death be reconciled with the solid evidence of the world around you? This booklet examines the reasons why primitive man believed in gods, and then shows how our steady increase in scientific knowledge, accelerating all the time, makes gods redundant. Touching upon how the accident of birthplace determines one's beliefs, the booklet uses the Bible, with its contradictions, its absurdities, its denigration of women and its cruelty, as an exemplar of all the world's scriptures and how they can mislead us.

Yet at the same time, this booklet preaches tolerance - except of the intolerant. There is no denial of the benefits which the more benevolent religions have brought, and the need for tact when dealing with believers is stressed. But at the end, the message is clear: all religions are the superstitions of the wishful-thinking, too many are malign, and atheism leads to contentment.