I have a strong feeling that the subject of evolution is beautiful without the excuse of creationists needing to be bashed.

Who are we to say that that was an odd way to do it? I don't think that it is God's purpose to make his intention absolutely obvious to us.

We accept that people are irrational for good Darwinian reasons. But I don't think we should be so pessimistic as to think that therefore we're forever condemned to be irrational.

...it is a telling fact that, the world over, the vast majority of children follow the religion of their parents rather than any of the other available religions.

Yes, testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next.

The Roman Catholic Church is an institution for whose gains the phrase "ill-gotten" might have been specially invented. And of all its money-making rip-offs, the selling of indulgences must surely rank among the greatest con tricks in history, the medieval equivalent of the Nigerian Internet scam but far more successful.

To an honest judge, the alleged convergence between religion and science is a shallow, empty, hollow, spin-doctored sham.