In Histoire Naturelle, a ­36-volume book Buffon worked on for 50 years, he also put forward the idea that animals were becoming extinct at a time when most natural historians believed that “God would never allow any species to ever disappear or arise over time”, according to Roberts. “The concept of species change and extinction was very controversial.”

The amount of shit that people have got wrong because of god…

Even without this key insight, Buffon postulated that new species must have come into existence and changed over time, while some species must have gone extinct. “That was a very, very radical idea at the time, and Buffon was censured for it by the Sorbonne: he had to write a statement publicly renouncing everything he had written,” said Roberts. Buffon was later formally accused of heresy for implying that Earth was older than the biblical record.

The number of people that have been wrongly persecuted because of god…

Religion is the most horrible invention in human history. It justifies mistreating others. It’s used to control people. It causes people to believe fiction over fact. It’s the one thing holding us back more than any other.