The greatest and most consequential innovations in human history have never resulted from an abundance of religious piety. The progress that improves lives comes as a result of scientific inquiry and a spirit of rationality.

Thousand-year-old religious texts cannot provide meaningful insight into the material nature of our world, nor does orthodoxy tend to respect free inquiry. Today in the Islamic world, many states enforce anti-science laws as a direct result of their non-secular nature. Meanwhile, distrust for naturalistic explanations of the world is a problem that runs through religious communities of all stripes.

Scientific facts nearly always begin as heresies. It is only by recognizing this that we can hope to understand ourselves and the world we live in.