The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.

I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgments.

If we offer too much silent assent about mysticism and superstition - even when it seems to be doing a little good - we abet a general climate in which scepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate.

The Romans called the Christians atheists. Why? Well, the Christians had a god of sorts, but it wasn't a real god. They didn't believe in the divinity of apotheosized emperors or Olympian gods. They had a peculiar, different kind of god. So it was very easy to call people who believed in a different kind of god atheists. And that general sense that an atheist is anybody who doesn't believe exactly as I do prevails in our own time.

All inquires carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions.

When we look up at night and view the stars, everything we see is shinning because of distant nuclear fusion.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue.