Zing!

From The God Delusion, Douglas Adams impromptu speech:

Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we
call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, 'Here is
an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything
bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because
you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't
agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you
like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels
aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or
down you are free to have an argument about it. But on
the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light
switch on a Saturday', you say, 'I respect that'.
Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support
the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans
or Democrats, this model of economics versus that,
Macintosh instead of Windows - but to have an opinion
about how the Universe began, about who created the
Universe . .. no, that's holy? . .. We are used to not
challenging religious ideas but it's very interesting how
much of a furore Richard creates when he does it!
Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're
not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it
rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be
as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed
somehow between us that they shouldn't be.