I took about a year to fully adjust. Like there's a death at the family or a divorce, you don't just snap your fingers and it's over.

In any open question, we should argue from what we do know to what we do not know. We do know that fervent legends and stubborn myths arise easily and naturally. We do not know that dead people rise from the grave.

Asking, ‘If there is no God, what is the purpose of life?’ is like asking, ‘If there is no master, whose slave will I be?’ If your purpose of life is to submit as a slave, then your meaning comes from flattering the ego of a person whom you should detest.

Freethought is respectable. Freethought is crucial. Freethought needs to be publicized.

I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being.

I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief.

You believe in a book that has sticks turning into snakes, and you say we are the ones that need help?