Why do more than 40 percent of Americans think that the Universe began after the domestication of the dog?

I would challenge the statement that my scientific instincts are any less rigorous than [Richard Dawkins]. The difference is that my presumption of the possibility of God and therefore the supernatural is not zero, and yours is.

Unfortunately, however much we may deplore something, it does not stop being true.

I think by the age of about nine I recognized that there were a lot of different religions, and it was an accident I happened to be born into one of them. If I had been born somewhere else, I would have had a different one. Which is a pretty good lesson, actually. Everyone should learn that.

Religion teaches you to be satisfied with nonanswers. It’s a sort of crime against childhood.

All animals are minor variations on a very particular theme.

I can remember at the age of about six being fascinated by the planets and learning all about Mars and Venus and things.