How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.

How we pay attention to the present moment...determin es the character of our experience and...the quality of our lives.

The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism.

You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

Jesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker

In my own case, the most inflammatory statements I have ever made are ones that I have written and remain willing to defend.

The point is that most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday.