Prayer is never just an emergency flare or desperate anxious gamble. God's attention is not based on our performance but parental love.

God's grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver. From the earliest parts of the Bible, it was understood that God could not forgive without sacrifice. No one who is seriously wronged can “just forgive” the perpetrator.

If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshipping an idealized version of yourself.

If there is a God, you owe him far more than a morally decent life.

Not everyone is your brother or sister in the faith, but everyone is your neighbor, and you must love your neighbor.

It takes pride to be anxious – I am not wise enough to know how my life should go.

It is one thing to say that science is only equipped to test for natural causes and cannot speak to any others. It is quite another to insist that science proves that no other causes could possibly exist. . . . There would be no experimental model for testing the statement: 'No supernatural cause for any natural phenomenon is possible.' It is therefore a philosophical presupposition and not a scientific finding.