As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population.

Ten years have now passed since many of us first felt the jolt of history-when the second plane crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. We knew from that moment that things can go terribly wrong in our world-not because life is unfair, or moral progress impossible, but because we have failed, generation after generation, to abolish the delusions of our ignorant ancestors.

It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potential.

Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma.

Unreason is now ascendant in the United States—in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government.

Religious faith is the one species of human ignorance that will not admit of even the possibility of correction.

The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It's really no more inflammatory than that.