direct quote from http://www.thismodernworld.com/singapore.html

I was born and raised a strict Baptist, which means I was leaning agnostic by the time I was about ten, since, come on, if God loves us the way like a big dad, he's not really gonna burn us in horrible brimstone for all eternity. I don't know anybody's dad who is that big of an asshole. And after seeing all these people bowing and kneeling and burning shit and shouting and whatnot, all in completely different manners, all quite convinced that their method was the correct one because their God Guys said so... you either gotta figure it's all good, none of it works, or your God is so much cooler that everybody else is just screwed.

After today, the third one is obvious ego lunacy, and I'm frankly not sure which of the first two to go with. I'm telling you -- it's one thing to read about different religions and take an ecumenical sit-down now and again -- I've been in mosques and temples of all kinds before, many times -- but it's another completely to do the Grand Tour in two hours.

It seems pretty obvious there's a natural selection that operates on ideas, just as surely as on genes. Ideas that don't work die out. Good ideas survive -- but only if they're also equipped with reproductive and defense mechanisms, just like life forms. Take two otherwise identical religions which practice loving your neighbor -- and give one a totalitarian, expansionist bent toward the outside world, requiring the conversion of non-believers -- while giving the other a live-and-let-live mindset. Stir. Come back in a hundred years and see which one is still around.

So. 6000 years into civilization, Christianity and Islam are the Arsenal and Manchester United (or, for Americans, the Coke and Pepsi) of religion. Like that's one hell of a shock, if you think about it. And the pacifists don't run shit.