FOOD FOR THOUGHT FROM MARTIN CRUZ SMITH’s …

‘Nightwing.’ 1977

‘Hey, Selwyn, you never told me. Why did you give up the missionary business?’

Never did. It gave up on me. I got another germ, see?’

‘No.’

… ‘It’s my theory that religion is like a disease. A great religion’s like an epidemic. Take Christianity, Mohammedanism, Buddhism. Just like epidemics. Start in one place, always spread along the trade routes, flourish for a few hundred years and die out. Or get overrun by a new epidemic. I was sent here like a germ, to infect you people. Instead,’ he shrugged, ‘you infected me.’