“Religion is not going to come up with any new arguments.”
Religion“Well, to the people who pray for me to not only have an agonising death, but then be reborn to have an agonising and horrible eternal life of torture, I say, 'Well, good on you. See you there.'”
Death“Religion is not going to come up with any new arguments.”
Religion“For most of my life I let women do the driving and was happy to let them.”
Women“I don't think consensus-building politics is what I'm meant to be doing.”
Politics“My children, to the extent that they have found religion, have found it from me, in that I insist on at least a modicum of religious education for them.”
Education“It's impossible, I think, however much I'd become disillusioned politically or evolve into a post-political person, I don't think I'd ever change my view that socialism is the best political moment humans have ever come up with.”
Best“The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It's a battle you can't hope to win - it's a battle that's going to go on forever. It's part of the human condition.”
Hope“I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.”
Humor“My favorite time in the cycles of public life is the time when the Pope is dead and they haven't elected a new one. There's no one in the world who is infallible for those weeks. And you know, I don't miss it.”
Time“One of the great questions of philosophy is, do we innately have morality, or do we get it from celestial dictation? A study of the Ten Commandments is a very good way of getting into and resolving that issue.”
Great“The advice I've been giving to people all my life - that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you you can't give up politics, it won't give you up - was the advice I should have been taking myself.”
Politics“Well, I'll put it this way: you can certainly say belief in God makes people behave worse. That can be proved beyond a doubt.”
God“To terrify children with the image of hell... to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?”
Women“Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.”
Faith“I'm not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the animal cycle of reproduction and give them some say in how many children they'll have, immediately the floor will rise.”
Women“Well, I'm in my 60s now. I finally look it, I think. People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have, as George Orwell says people do after a certain age, the face they deserve.”
Age“I'm afraid the SS's relationship with the Catholic Church is something the Church still has to deal with and does not deny.”
Relationship“Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.”
Faith“If you look at any Muslim society and you make a scale of how developed they are, and how successful the economy is, it's a straight line. It depends on how much they emancipate their women.”
Society“I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators.”
Power“People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have, as George Orwell says people do after a certain age, the face they deserve.”
Age