Marcus Aurelius asked a pertinent question: What is it in itself, what is its nature? This question, meant for anything and everything, has been applied to Religion by Peter Lockhart. To answer it, he goes to the origins, both historically and psychologically. Like any living organism, a religion has relatives and origins. These are easily found in the Bible, and in the History of the Christian and Jewish religions. The clear link between Judaism and Christianity, with ancient Persia and Zoroastrianism, is easily found in both the Old and New Testaments. Then there is the psychological aspect...

The Dinosaurs were going along just fine. That can be said too about the Incas and Aztecs. They were going along fine too. And we too have been going along just fine for a time. But then, a meteorite changed everything for the Dinosaurs. For the American Continents, everything changed the instant Christopher Columbus set his foot there. To think that nothing could ever go wrong has always been wrong thinking. Complacency, history tells us, always goes before the fall of an empire, a civilisation or an entire species. There have been "Golden Ages" in history, and then in an instant, it comes...