Atheists should point out that life without God can be meaningful, moral and happy.

When you do the right thing, but not to any particular person, we instinctively feel that we have earned some sort of pay back. Since no-one will do that for us, we opt for self-service reciprocation.

As a teenager, I increasingly had questions about religion to which I found no good answers.

If we find it hard to believe that winning millions might not be so lucky after all, we just don't have a good enough imagination. If I fantasise about winning the lottery, it doesn't take long before all sorts of worrisome potential consequences occur to me.

If we now find ourselves looking down on the cheap and convenient, it is only because we now have better things which are affordable.

Whatever the truth is about the extent to which truth is respected in the future, it is going to depend partly on what we do. More important than making predictions is doing things which help bring about this respect.

Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice.