The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight - that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything [that] a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether.

Let me lay my cards on the table. If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone ever had, I'd give it to Darwin, ahead of even Newton or Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law. It is not just a wonderful idea. It is a dangerous idea.

It's a no win situation. It's a mug's game. The religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them critically without being rude. They play the hurt feelings card at every opportunity.

There are no good reasons to believe in god.

Try to acquire the weird practice of savoring your mistakes, delighting in uncovering the strange quirks that led you astray. Then, when you have sucked out all the goodness to be gained from having made them, you can cheerfully forget them and go on to the next big opportunity.

In the beginning, there were no reasons; there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing has so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all.

I even agree that the concept of god helps some people lead better lives. That does happen. Don't ever forget it. I just think there are better ways to help people lead better lives.