If Bush and Blair are eventually put on trial for war crimes, I shall not be among those pressing for them to be hanged.

So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?

[Creationists have] lost in the courts of law; they've long ago lost in the halls of science; and they continue to lose with every new piece of evidence in support of evolution. Taking offense is all they've got left.

As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers

I'm not much given to straight, irony-free hero-worship.

Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is actually written in it?

If people think God is interesting, the onus is on them to show that there is anything there to talk about. Otherwise they should just shut up about it.