I disagree with those who argue that evolutionary biology and the existence of God are incompatible.

The big picture, I think, is that common ancestry is evidentially prior to natural selection in Darwin's theory and in contemporary evolutionary biology as well.

Deism claims that God creates the universe and the laws of nature and then is hands-off, with everything that subsequently happens in nature being due to natural processes.

Earlier attempts to show that simpler theories always have higher prior probabilities have failed, but there is a restricted circumstance in which the claim is right.

I think that the existence of Beethoven is remarkable, but I do not bristle at the suggestion that this event had a low probability given the initial state of the universe.

Biologists now pretty universally regard vitalism as a vestige of a bygone age.

When one theory is simpler than its competitor, this fact is relevant to saying what the world is like.

In many contexts, simplicity is not an aesthetic frill.

Scientists often seek predictively accurate models, rather than models that are true.

Our own species evolved under the influence of group selection, as Darwin emphasized when he discussed the evolution of altruism.

"Tiger is a natural kind" and "Tiger is a historical particular" are incompatible with each other, and evolutionary biology provides a reason for favoring the latter over the former.

There isn’t any hell or heaven except for how we relate to our world. Hell is just resistance to life.

A word to the wise is sufficient.

I do love the films I've done in the past. I work hard in my movies and my friends work hard and we're trying to make people laugh and I'm very proud of that.

It is in Zen practice that you gain power, balance and wisdom. The battles that you fight are within your own mind. That is where the real victories and defeats are.

Fairness does not consist so much of everybody's doing the same thing, but of everybody's being willing to do something that others don't want to do.

Your character defects are not where you're bad, but where you're wounded. But no matter who or what causes the wound, it's yours now and you're responsible for it.

Only a mother knows a mother's fondness.

While writing, you are more interested in seeing what happens with you in the process, because all that writing is just you sorting through and exploring and wondering and figuring out your thoughts.

The one thing that is said to have surprised God is that the voice of intercession had ceased. 'And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor' (Isaiah 59:16).

It is wholly wrong to blame Marx for what was done in his name, as it is to blame Jesus for what was done in his