Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology.

Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.

After their return from Babylon, the practice of human sacrifice died out among the Jews, but survived as an ideal in one of its break-away sects, which believed that God accepted the torture-sacrifice of an innocent man in exchange for not visiting a worse fate on the rest of humanity. The sect is called Christianity.

Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.

The theory that religion is a force for peace, often heard among the religious right and its allies today, does not fit the facts of history.

M.I.T. has a reputation for turning out Dilberts. They may be brilliant in what they do, but no one can understand what they say.

Thinking is a physical process, the human brain is not exempt from evolution