Matthew and Luke handle the problem differently, by deciding that Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem after all. But they get him there by different routes.

If you don't understand how something works, never mind: just give up and say God did it. You don't know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don't understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don't go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God.

I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden

The universe doesn't owe you a sense of hope

Along with William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin is Britain's greatest gift to the world. He was our greatest thinker.

Writing a computer virus program is child's play. Any fool can do it, which is why the silly little twerps who do have nothing to be proud of.

It is all too easy to mistake passion that can change its mind for fundamentalism, which never will.