This is a book about religion, a human institution that can make us behave with utmost courage and love or with mindless hatred and violence. The roots of religion lie deep in the history of our species and in the unconscious minds of us all. There is a common core and many branches. A religion can begin in a burst of joy and enlightenment and then, within a thousand years, turn to pessimism and persecution. Every religion has a dark underbelly, and as the educated and economically thriving sector of the world separates faith from state, the world's poor and ignorant are embracing the darkest aspects of traditional religion. The Cold War was nothing compared to the religious wars that we are facing now and into the future.