On the whole, there are today nearly 2 billion self-proclaimed Christians. Islam, with 1.3 billion people, is thriving too, and fundamentalist strains are making fresh inroads into all three Abrahamic faiths. Christian fundamentalism in particular is spreading like wildfire in places like China and Southeast Asia, and most of all, in sub-Saharan Africa.

The United States—the world’s most economically powerful society and a scientifically advanced one—is also, anomalously, one of the most religious. Over 90 percent of Americans believe in God, 93 percent and 85 percent believe in heaven and hell, respectively, and close to one in two Americans believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis.

Despite many predictions of religion’s demise in the last 200 years, most people in most societies in the world still are, and have always been, deeply religious.

Ara Norenzayan, Big Gods

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

God

Legends of prediction are common throughout the Household of Man.

God speaks, spirits speak, computers speak.

Oracular ambiguity or statistical probability provides loopholes, and discrepancies are expunged by Faith.

Ursula Le Guin, Left Hand Of Darkness

He feebly wags his tail. That’s what a greeting without underlying hostility looks like. No dead eyes here. That’s love. He doesn’t blame me for his predicament, which, to be fair, he could. The human race should take a lesson from him. I gently pet him, whispering comfort, praising him for his fortitude. He seems grateful for the attention, but his eyes are trained on the gnawed, unopened cans of dog food scattered around the room.

His body stills, and just like that he is dead. The world is cruel. I weep for my best friend, for that is truly what he was. He was always there for me, ever happy to see me. He didn’t care whether or not I was successful, whether or not I was a genius. I feel I probably let him down. He was, in many ways, a better man than I, and I hope someday to learn from his example.

Except for that snarling moment, which, to be frank, hurt my feelings, even though I understand there were probably extenuating circumstances and that, in the end, it wasn’t really about me.

Hunger is a cruel mistress.

Charlie Kaufman, Antkind

Physical exhaustion, hunger, sickness, and pain can break our connections or stem their growth. The power of pain is that it obliterates our connection with the personal-cultural world and wipes out the meaningful context that gives direction to our hopes and strivings.

It narrows human consciousness to the point where, as torturers know, man literally becomes a beast. And even at that, pain does not always succeed, so powerful are the links to those meanings that give sense to life.

Jerome Bruner, Acts Of Meaning

There are some simple truths
And dogs know what they are

Joseph Duemer, Dog’s Book Of Truths

If crows or scrub jays notice another bird watching them while they are hiding their food, they will come back and move their stash—suggesting that they understand the knowledge of other birds. Dolphins are also thought to have sophisticated mind perception and can easily follow the gazes or gestures of humans to complete a task, such as fetching specific objects.

But the real champions of understanding mental states—at least those of humans—are dogs, because they coevolved with us. Over millennia we fed, petted, and sheltered the dogs that knew what we were thinking, and we killed, beat, and exiled the dogs that were oblivious to our desires.

This gives modern-day dogs an amazing ability to read human thoughts by attending to nonverbal cues, such as gaze and pointing.

Dan Wegner & Kurt Gray, Mind Club

What if God was one of us?
Just a dog like one of us
Just chasin after the bus
Tryin to make his way home?

So he can slobber on his bone

Joan Osborne, One Of Us (Prof P-mix)