There is no reason for believing that any sort of gods exist, and quite good reasons for believing that they do not exist and never have. It has all been a gigantic waste of time and a waste of life. It would be a joke of cosmic proportions if it weren't so tragic.

The river of my title is a river of DNA, a river of information, not a river of bones and tissues

However brief our time in the sun, if we waste a second of it, or complain that it is dull or barren or (like a child) boring, couldn't this be seen as a callous insult to those unborn trillions who will never even be offered life in the first place?

I don't see that [Richard] Dawkins' basic account of evolution is incompatible with God's having designed it.

There may be some deep questions about the cosmos that are forever beyond science. The mistake is to think they are therefore not beyond religion too.

If it is solely an evolutionary convenience, there is really no such thing as good or evil.

I think Douglas [Adams] is writing with an eye to irony for adults at the same time as entertaining children.