“Breathless with awe and the elemental beauty, power and depth of Nature, it seems relatively obvious that humans often invented gods as refuges, through and into which they could project their own dreams of mastery and omnipotence, and through which they might enjoy some measure of protection against forces whose inconceivable breadth and momentum rendered them an omnipresent threat to sense and repose. Thus, the gods became relief from Nature’s infinite majesty, and the crude ladder along which we would postulate and prosecute our largely fatuous eminence.”

— an anonymous informant