The fall of the great religious establishments had been as swift and sudden as that of communism. After decades of religious inspiration or exacerbation of terrorism, fundamentalism, apocalyptic wars, creationism, climate-change denial, women's oppression, poverty, ignorance and disease, it was payback time. In a variety of forms, secularism had swept the board in all the advanced countries. No politician with any religious taint had a chance of national election. Every prohibition influenced by religion had been repealed. Every trace of religious influence had been excluded from the education system, and no exemptions from the secular state education system were allowed.
The faith-heads had called it the Great Rejection.
- KEN MACLEOD, The Night Sessions (Canada, USA, Europe)
About halfway through this one and it's a very good read thus far!
Here's the blurb:
A bishop is dead. As Detective Inspector Adam Ferguson picks through the rubble of the tiny church, he discovers that it was deliberately bombed. That it’s a terrorist act is soon beyond doubt. It’s been a long time since anyone saw anything like this. Terrorism is history.
After the Middle East wars and the rising sea levels, after Armageddon and the Flood, came the Great Rejection. The first Enlightenment separated church from state. The Second Enlightenment has separated religion from politics. In this enlightened age there’s no persecution, but the millions who still believe and worship are a marginal and mistrusted minority. Now someone is killing them.
At first, suspicion falls on atheists more militant than the secular authorities. But when the target list expands to include the godless, it becomes evident that something very old has risen from the ashes. Old and very, very dangerous. . .
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