“Jesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker”

The problem with religion, because it’s been sheltered from criticism, is that it allows people to believe en masse what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.

It is utterly astonishing how ordinary a book can be and still be thought the product of omniscience.

The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It’s really no more inflammatory than that.

Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.

Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.

The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.

Religious faith obscures uncertainty where uncertainty exists, allowing the unknown, the implausible, and the false to achieve primacy over the facts.

Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma.

What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ or ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?

People who harbor strong convictions without evidence belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of power.

Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name.

What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody’s beliefs, we evaluate their reasons.

The core of science is not a mathematical modeling–it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle.

The faith of religion is belief on insufficient evidence.

How we pay attention to the present moment…determin es the character of our experience and…the quality of our lives.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its fragrance on the desert air.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.

I’m single because I was born that way.

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?

All humans are born with the ability to be attracted to both sexes. I mean, I could see myself in a relationship with a girl.

Where a man feels at home, outside of where he’s born, is where he’s meant to go.

Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.