“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.”

When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.

We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.

When I am dying, I should like my life taken out under general anaesthetic, exactly as if it were a diseased appendix.

Science replaces private prejudice with public, verifiable evidence.

Such delusions of grandeur to think that a God with a hundred billion galaxies on his mind would give a tuppenny damn who you sleep with, or indeed whether you believe in him.

Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.

The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity.

If there is a human moral to be drawn, it is that we must teach our children altruism, for we cannot expect it to be part of their biological nature.

We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.

Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it.

Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it.

Religion is not the root of all evil, for no one thing is the root of all anything.

Religion is not the root of all evil, for no one thing is the root of all anything.

I don’t give a damn for anybody’s opinion, I only care about the facts. So I’m not an enthusiast for diversity of opinion where factual matters are concerned.