Describing beauty is almost impossible because we perceive it, rather than describe it. If you look at a Rembrandt painting and start to try and describe what the beauty is you see, your words sound absolutely pathetic.

Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s the exact opposite. It’s a commitment based on evidence… It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule. That provides a very anti-intellectual and convenient way of avoiding intelligent discussion.

What (Stephen) Hawking says in his book The Grand Design is the universe exists because it needed to exist, and because it needed to exist, it therefore created itself. His conclusion merely restates his premise, which means his argument is circular. Nonsense is nonsense, even when spoken by famous scientists.

Nonsense is nonsense even when spoken by world-famous scientists.

The idea of separating church and state by the Founding Fathers of America was freedom from the domination of one form of religion, because many of them left England, because they were persecuted by the church, because they want to express their Christian faith in a different way. So it was a bit of warfare between Christians.

I've got a telescope in my garden and one of the things I love to do is go out and let the sky, the night sky, the galaxies, the Orion nebula, have an impact on my mind. I find that awe inspiring. And just to contemplate on what the astronomers have revealed to us about the immense size and so on of the universe. I find that very healthy. And it's a good thing to do.

The new atheism as an old atheism, except it's much more aggressive. The new atheism wants to destroy religion. That's a very different thing. The arguments are not new, it's the aggression that's new.