That so many manage to accommodate belief systems encompassing both the natural and the supernatural is a testament not to the compatibility of science and religion but to the flexibility, in both the physical and metaphysical senses, of the human brain.

If you believe in what I do, which is secular humanism, I would find it extremely difficult to live with someone - not to love someone - but to live with somebody and build a life of someone who disagreed with me on something so fundamental.

I still do find the prayers of the Kaddish quite moving, and I just substitute in my mind nature, although that's what the founders did in a lot of their documents, too. They substituted nature or providence for God. I think that's what I do in my head with Jewish God.

It is hard to think of conversion as a blinding light on the road to Damascus, or as a highly spiritual or intellectual process, when the light comes from a flickering television; the voice of the deity is Bishop Sheen and you have drilled your father on his catechism answers...I was troubled at a young age by the idea that pouring water over someone's head could change both his relationship to God.

I don't ever participate in debates about the existence or nonexistence of God because I can't imagine why anyone would be persuaded one way or the other by such things.

one of the great weaknesses of the women's rights movement over the past two hundred years has been the tendency of its history to disappear, so that it must be resurrected for each new generation.

I believe that whether one believes in God or not is - it's very central to who I am.