Damned Good Company

Damned Good Company tells twenty dramatic tales of conflicts between God experts and humanist rebels, from earliest times through the 21st century, featuring all major religions around the world. The song remains the same: Han Yu's banishment from the 9th century Chinese court for questioning the worship of the Buddha's finger mirrors Baruch Spinoza's expulsion from his 17th century Amsterdam Jewish community for questioning Moses' authorship of the Torah. By contrast, Talleyrand...
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Damned Good Company tells twenty dramatic tales of conflicts between God experts and humanist rebels, from earliest times through the 21st century, featuring all major religions around the world. The song remains the same: Han Yu's banishment from the 9th century Chinese court for questioning the worship of the Buddha's finger mirrors Baruch Spinoza's expulsion from his 17th century Amsterdam Jewish community for questioning Moses' authorship of the Torah. By contrast, Talleyrand never believed in God, but used religion shamelessly to advance his political ambition - exactly as Mussolini did a century later, and as the book will argue Barack Obama is doing today. The stories in Damned Good Company will inspire those today who want to stand up to the Christian Right, the Muslim fanatics, the oppressiveness of Catholic and Jewish orthodoxy, the rising Hindu Taliban, and everyone else who claims the God-given right to tell the rest of us what to do.