Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous.

Whatever the evolutionary basis of religion, the xenophobia it now generates is clearly maladaptive.

When a person's religious beliefs cause him to deny the evidence of science, or for whom public policy morphs into a battle with the devil, shouldn't that be a subject for discussion and debate?

Most people don't base their morality on religion in spite what they say. If you ask people, "If you didn't believe in God, would you go out and kill your neighbour?" Most people will say, "No".

Empirical explorations ultimately change our understanding of which questions are important and fruitful and which are not.

The ultimate goal of physicists is to arrive at an equation that explains everything and could fit on a t-shirt. That may happen but the t-shirt would have to be 10-dimensional.

The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.