Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional "next world" is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.

If Bush and Blair are eventually put on trial for war crimes, I shall not be among those pressing for them to be hanged.

I think that [Jay] Gould's separate compartments was a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp. But it's a very empty idea. There are plenty of places where religion does not keep off the scientific turf.

It's a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom and knowledge, power, couldn't think of a better way to forgive us our sins than to come down to Earth in his alter ego as his son and have himself hideously tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself.

When I am dying, I should like my life taken out under general anaesthetic, exactly as if it were a diseased appendix.

The book is true, and if evidence seems to condtradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out not the book.

It is a remarkable coincidence that almost everyone has the same religion as their parents and it always just so happens they're the right religion.