It is all too easy to mistake passion that can change its mind for fundamentalism, which never will.

I think we don't do a service to dialogue between science and faith to characterize sincere people by calling them names. That inspires an even more dug-in position.

Far from being demeaning to human spiritual values, scientific rationalism is the crowning glory of the human spirit. Of course you can use the products of science to do bad things, but you can use them to do good things too.

I think what attracts me about the Electric Monk is that it's such an eloquent example of the futility of belief for belief's sake. I mean there's only any point in believing something if it's true.

How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one.

I mean, in a way, I feel that one of the reasons for learning about Darwinian evolution is as an object lesson in how not to set up our values and social lives.

We are digital archives of the African Pliocene, even of Devonian seas; walking repositories of wisdom out of the old days. You could spend a lifetime reading in this ancient library and die unsated by the wonder of it.