There is nothing more profane than the image of an atheist with tears in his eyes conducting the glory and passion of Handel's Messiah.

Positions on politics and religion are labels. Inside I'm still me, just older and tired.

Evangelical Christians are not sincere. It is all about making money.

The Republican base is now made up of religious and neoconservative ideologues, and the uneducated white underclass with a token person of color or two up front on TV to obscure the all-white, all reactionary all backward — there-is-no-global-warming — rube reality. Actual conservatives, let alone the educated classes, have long since fled.

I think that unlike W Bush who was an actual evangelical and sincerely so (my family knew the Bush family), of course Trump will disappoint when it comes to evangelicals. I'm not talking about personal behavior but policy.

My problem with all forms of fundamentalism is that the position is fixed. This is like talking about a fixed position as seen from a moving jet: it's disappearing over the horizon with or without your permission.

I don't think anyone sees truth for a simple reason: we aren't static.

All we know about Jesus is what someone else wrote down... so really one should say, Here is what someone wrote down that they said Jesus said... this isn't uncertainty on purpose, just plain speaking.

Scientists and theologians can’t offer better than circular arguments, because there are no other kinds of arguments. Bible believers quote the Bible, and scientists quote other scientists. How do either scientists or theologians answer this question about the accuracy of their conclusions: “In reference to what?

We have no outside point of view. We are nature too.

North Korea and evangelical empires have the same principle of leadership: nepotism to the nth degree. You may not get the call, but you inherit the mailing list.

We are not evolved but evolving.

We are always in transition.

When I was a child, my parents taught a literal creation. By the time I was in my 20s they were accommodating evolution. In other words, less creed, more roll with changing ways of seeing. Maybe adapting is a better way to see this.

I think that the Democratic Party has been ill served by identity politics. I think that ironically evangelicals have now bought into the same mistake. They have discovered allies in the white supremacist movement. I think this is a heavy price to pay and will in the end accelerate the departure from religion by young people.

Science says nothing. People say things and knowledge changes.

Beliefs should be like the rest of life, and real life isn't rules but learning and adaption.

We’re living in an acquisitive capitalist society that is fundamentally anti-family and fundamentally uncomfortable with just enjoying being human. We’d rather shop than live, acquire than love and stare into a screen than hold each other.