We are not princes of the earth, we are the descendants of worms, and any nobility must be earned.

It's amazing how much detail Catholics will go into documenting why people shouldn't do the things that they all do anyway.

Most of what happens in the world is just a consequence of natural, universal laws- laws that apply everywhere and to everything, with no special exemptions or amplifications for your benefit- given variety by the input of chance. Everything that you as a human being consider cosmically important is an accident.

The mediocrity principle simply states that you aren't special. The universe does not revolve around you; this planet isn't privileged in any unique way; your country is not the perfect product of directed, intentional fate; and that tuna sandwich you had for lunch was not plotting to give you indigestion.

We godless lack that certainty, and we know the world is a complex place that requires compromise and is not ruled by a moral force - virtue is subject to negotiation, and is found in working together with others to find mutually satisfactory solutions. Good is not absolute, it is an emergent property that arises from successful networks of individuals. It is also something that is measured by evidence: we look at the good that people do, not the promises that they make and never keep, or the lies that dovetail nicely into dogma. Competence is a virtue. Intent is meaningless without action.

Religion is a barbarous obsidian knife poised over our chests put it in a cabinet and admire it as a work of art, but don't ever wield the damned thing ever again.

Human beings are still fish.