Any belief in miracles is flat contradictory not just to the facts of science but to the spirit of science.

I had always been scrupulously careful to avoid the smallest suggestion of infant indoctrination, which I think is ultimately responsible for much of the evil in the world. Others, less close to her, showed no such scruples, which upset me, as I very much wanted her, as I want all children, to make up her own mind freely when she became old enough to do so. I would encourage her to think, without telling her what to think.

To describe religions as mind viruses is sometimes interpreted as contemptuous or even hostile. It is both. I am often asked why I am so hostile to organized religion.

You can't even begin to understand biology, you can't understand life, unless you understand what it's all there for, how it arose - and that means evolution.

Pope Francis seems to be a much nicer man than Pope Benedict, but I'm not sure that his views on things that really matter are all that different. Whereas Benedict was perhaps a wolf in wolf's clothing, Francis is perhaps a wolf in sheep's clothing.

There is something wrong with using faith - belief without evidence - as a political weapon. I wouldn't say there is something similar about using science. Science - or the products of science like technology - is just a way of achieving something real, something that happens, something that works.

Not a single one of your ancestors died young. They all copulated at least once.