Christmas is a rare occasion when we are reminded that we have obligations to people we did not choose to be related to, and that love is not just a spontaneous feeling but something we sometimes really have to work at, with people we may not even much like.

I think that internet technologies are making everything so transparent. The arms race of deception and spin against the public trying to keep up with it - I think the forces of spin have to lose. In the corporate world people are finding this. Corporate social responsibility has been on the agenda for a very long time - and a lot of people say it's a kind of green-wash or white-wash - but because there's nowhere to hide anymore, people are coming around to the realization that the only way to be seen to be good is to be good. You can't fake it.

The idea that there is a sharp boundary between our true, inner selves and the outside world is pervasive, but highly questionable. The boundaries of the self might well be more porous than we ordinarily think.

Morality is more than possible without God, it is entirely independent of him.

Believers are right when they say that to understand a religion properly you need to get under its skin. But to understand it fully, you cannot stay there: you have to take a more objective view, too.

The idea that the mind can extend even beyond the body is an intriguing one, and is bound to become more pressing as we increasingly develop technologies that augment our natural abilities.

Being able and willing to complain is what makes us rational and moral animals, capable of seeing and articulating the difference between how things are and how they should be.