The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.

Religion is a mixed blessing.

The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years.

You can't have a world where 50 percent of the people are dieting and 50 percent of the people are starving if you want stability.

It's not going to be a straight upward progression, but there's no doubt that consciousness is growing. Prejudices die regularly in the Western world. We don't burn witches anymore.

Prayer is not adult letters written to Santa Claus, and God is not some parent-like figure up in the sky who's going to take care of us.

I think I can tell you how I experience God. I experience God as the power of life calling me to live, I experience God as the power of love calling me to love. That's the God I see in Jesus of Nazareth, that's the God I see in the fourth gospel.