We have to find our own purposes in life, which are not derived directly from our scientific history.

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.

Ideally, I'd like everybody to be secular.

The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.

If it suits [God] to be a deity that we must seek without being forced to, would it not have been sensible for him to use the mechanism of evolution without posting obvious road signs to reveal his role in creation?

Science is wonderful, science is important, and so are children, so are young people, and so what could be better than to write a science book for young people?

There are sincere believers who interpret Genesis 1 and 2 in a very literal way that is inconsistent, frankly, with our knowledge of the universe's age or of how living organisms are related to each other.