The idea of a divine creator belittles the elegant reality of the universe.

No doubt soaring cathedrals, stirring music, moving stories and parables, help a bit. But by far the most important variable determining your religion is the accident of birth.

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.

To invoke the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing - for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer.

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.

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think.

The truth is more magical - in the best and most exciting sense of the word - than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic: the magic of reality.