the Point of Inquiry podcast, when asked, "Do you think religion might actually be harmful for one's happiness?", she said, "Yes ... when I wrote Doubt it was very much to show people who felt that doubting religion or getting away from religion was painful. I find the world in which the natural world that we see the world, in which we make up no other, I find that world to be the best one. I'm glad there's no afterlife. I like the world as it is. And I think that religion does add a tremendous amount of guilt and pain and trouble." Hecht does not, however, believe that religion is all bad. In that same interview, she went on to say, "The beautiful building and coming together and reminding oneself of community, of how we must each take the role that is given us, know yourself, remember death, control your desires, these are the big messages of wisdom. And religion got it right that you have to meditate on them for them to work." In a December 2013 article for Politico Magazine, Hecht examined "The Last Taboo" in American politics, atheism. Referencing newly retired Rep. Barney Frank's lack of religious belief she wrote, "Was it really harder to come out as an atheist politician in 2013 than as a gay one 25 years ago?" Published works Her debut poetry collection, The Next Ancient World, artfully mixes contemporary and ancient world views, histories, and myths. In 2002 it received the Tupelo Press Judge's Prize in Poetry, the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, as well as ForeWord Magazine's award for Poetry Book of the Year. Her second collection, Funny, explores the implications of the human love of humor and jokes. It won the 2005 Felix Pollak Prize from the University of Wisconsin Press. Her most recent collection, Who Said (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), playfully asks the title question of some of the most iconic English language poems. In 2003 Hecht published two books of history and philosophy with two different publishers. The first, Doubt: A History, is an epic, worldwide study of religious doubt throughout history. The other, The End of the Soul, is a profile of an unusual group of nineteenth-century French anthropologists who formed the Society of Mutual Autopsy to discover links between personality, ability and brain morphology. It received the prestigious Ralph