Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn't write? But that fortunately hasn't proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

I am a person of faith: I am a person who will believe practically anything on no evidence at all.

Terrorism works better as a tactic for dictatorships, or for would-be dictators, than for revolutionaries .

Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.

So here we have found a means of a) alienating even the most flexible and patient Palestinians; while b) frustrating the efforts of the more principled and compromising Israelis; while c) empowering and financing some of the creepiest forces in American and Israeli society; and d) heaping ordure on our own secular founding documents. When will the Justice Department and the Congress and the Supreme Court become aware of this huge and rank offense, which is designed to bring us ever nearer to holy war?

No one has the right to tell me what to do because he has a divine warrant.