By dislaiming the idea of a next life, we can take more excitement in this one!

I'm not so fond of the sort of science fiction that isn't really science fiction but is sometimes thought to be - Gothic princesses and white horses and bats and castles and things.

Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.

An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor or Baal or the golden calf. We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

What are all of us but self-reproducing robots? We have been put together by our genes and what we do is roam the world looking for a way to sustain ourselves and ultimately produce another robot child.

It's a truly disgusting idea that the creator of the universe - capable of inventing the laws of physics and designing the evolutionary process - that this protégé of supernatural intellect couldn't think of a better way to forgive our sins than to have himself tortured to death.

Physicists have come up with other explanations. One is to say that these six constants are not free to vary. Some unified theory will eventually show that they are as locked in as the circumference and the diameter of a circle. That reduces the odds of them all independently just happening to fit the bill.