It has been convincingly demonstrated that countries where there are high rates of poverty, or high rates of economic inequality, are the countries with the highest rates of religious beliefs.

Absolutist morality doesn't have to come from religion but usually does.

I'm not much given to straight, irony-free hero-worship.

We're going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.

I mean it as a compliment when I say that you could almost define a philosopher as someone who won't take common sense for an answer.

Explaining is a difficult art. You can explain something so that your reader understands the words; and you can explain something so that the reader feels it in the marrow of his bones. To do the latter, it sometimes isn't enough to lay the evidence before the reader in a dispassionate way. You have to become an advocate and use the tricks of the advocate's trade.

Humans have more moral responsibility perhaps, because they are capable of reasoning.