At 12, I knew that the point of being human was to spend one's life fighting social injustice.

Truthfulness under oath is, by now, a matter of our civic religion, our relation to our fellow citizens rather than our relation to a nonhuman power.

There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves.

The usual picture of Socrates is of an ugly little plebeian who inspired a handsome young nobleman to write long dialogues on large topics.

What sort of world can we prepare for our great grandchildren?

At 12, I knew that the point of being human was to spend one's life fighting social injustice.

I illustrate with a quotation from the atheist philosopher Richard Rorty, who died recently and is, I suspect, now having a lengthy conversation with his maker. Rorty argued that secular professors ought “to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own.