We don’t need fossils – the case for evolution is watertight without them; so it is paradoxical to use gaps in the fossil record as though they were evidence against evolution.
There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents.
How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one.
The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.
When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.
It is a remarkable coincidence that almost everyone has the same religion as their parents and it always just so happens they’re the right religion.
The idea of an afterlife where you can be reunited with loved ones can be immensely consoling – though not to me.
Why, I can’t help wondering, is God thought to need such ferocious defence? One might have supposed him amply capable of looking after himself.
Isn’t it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?
Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime.
Natural selection is anything but random.
Commonsense lets us down, because commonsense evolved in a world where nothing moves very fast, and nothing is very small or very large; the mundane world of the familiar.
I find that religion really does motivate people to do horrible things because they have this passionate faith in whatever their religion happens to be, and it teaches them that the other religion is the wrong one.
It’s very important to try to inculcate into children moral rules, such as “do as you would be done by.”
Human beings are just gene machines.
The fact that somebody does good doesn’t make their beliefs true.
I guess there are some rights of parents with what they choose their children to learn, but I’m biased in favor of freeing children to learn and not letting parents be too doctrinaire in indoctrinating their children.
We have this one life, let’s enjoy it, let’s live it to the full and don’t get so worked up about don’t identify yourself so passionately with this business called religion.
Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense.
If any remedy is tested under controlled scientific conditions and proved to be effective, it will cease to be alternative and will simply become medicine. So-called alternative medicine either hasn’t been tested or it has failed its tests.