"But Bertrand Russell was an agnostic.

"My standpoint is totally different. To me it is natural that when you are sick you will go to the doctor and when you are sick you will need medicine. You don't go to the doctor when you are healthy. You don't go to the druggist for some medicine when you are perfectly healthy. And it is not that the so-called religions have helped you in any way to get out of misery – that would be destroying their whole business. They want you to remain in misery, hoping that in the next life you will enjoy the blessings of God, because you suffered so contentedly, you suffered without revolt against the vested interests.

"Politicians became interested in religion and kings were very much supportive of organized religion, because they could see a simple arithmetic. Religion provides opium to the people, a consolation, and if this opium is not provided for the people, revolt is going to happen. So those who are in power are deeply interested that you should remain sad, miserable, in anxiety, because your anxiety and your sadness will take you to the priests and they will give you the opium called hope. 'Don't be worried, pray. And if you pray with a pure heart, and if you pray with absolute belief, your prayer will be answered.'

"Now, it is a very tricky game. Nobody can have absolute belief. Belief as such is borrowed from somebody else, you don't know anything about it. How can you be absolute in your belief? At the most you can repress your doubt with the belief, but the doubt is there. So when your prayers are not heard, you know it is not the fault of God or the fault of prayer: your belief is not total, your trust has doubt underneath it. Although you are praying, you know deep within you, 'Who knows whether there is a God who is listening or going to answer?' This helps the priest to keep you in your miserable situation.

"If your prayer is not heard, then fast, purify yourself, do all kinds of disciplines and certainly your prayer will be answered. Nobody's prayer has ever been answered."