Book critics or theatre critics can be derisively negative and gain delighted praise for the trenchant with of their review. But in criticisms of religion even clarity ceases to be a virtue and sounds like aggressive hostility. A politician may attack an opponent scathingly across the floor of the House and earn plaudits for his robust pugnacity. But let a soberly reasoning critic of religion employ what would in other contexts sound merely direct or forthright, and it will be described as a 'rant'.

I think more than 20 percent of Nobel Prizes have been won by Jews.

I love romantic poetry.

The fact that somebody does good doesn't make their beliefs true.

If we say that religion is a virus, then why isn't science a virus?

If you were to actually travel around schools and universities and listen in on lectures about evolution you might find a fairly substantial fraction of young people, without knowing what it is they disapprove of, think they disapprove of it, because they've been brought up to.

I'm not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.