To know one must understand.

To understand one must recognize.

To recognize one must see.

To see one must know.

—Unknown, seen in Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda


Yet you are willing to assert your own religious convictions and to use them as a touchstone to judge my conduct. So I repeat: who told you? What hill were you standing on when the lightning came down from heaven and illuminated you? Which archangel carried the message?


I believe that a man has an obligation to be merciful to the weak ... patient with the stupid ... generous with the poor. I think he is obliged to lay down his life for his brothers, should it be required of him. But I don't propose to prove any of these things; they are beyond proof. And I don't demand that you believe as I do.


I believe very strongly in freedom of religion - but I think that that freedom is best expressed as freedom to keep quiet. From my point of view, a great deal of openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit.


—Robert Heinlein -- "If This Goes On -"