I think the story of the Christian faith is how you can become more deeply and fully human, not how you can become religious. And I don't see any indication that being religious makes you more moral.

I do assert that one prepares for eternity not by being religious and keeping the rules, but by living fully, loving wastefully, and daring to be all that each of us has the capacity to be.

The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.

I think one of the things we've got to look out for is human beings claiming that they know how God operates.

The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.

I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God.

Was Judas Iscariot a figure of history? I do not think so. There is no mention of him in any source before the 8th decade.

All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. And that's where it turns demonic. Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake.

I don't want a God that would go around killing people's little girls. Neither do I want a God who would kill his own son.

I prepare for death by living.

You can't have a world where 50 percent of the people are dieting and 50 percent of the people are starving if you want stability.

War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up some failure on the part of the adults.

Just smile and feel happy.

We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.

I am an atheist.

Instantly, the pair fell to groping one other as if each had puff the magic dragon at a rock concert in Woodstock.

No matter what you may believe spiritually or otherwise, the Earth is clearly not 6,000 or 10,000 years old.

I remember being on a black-and-white set all day and then going out into daylight and being amazed by the colour.

Any time a negro community lives under fear that its churches are going to be bombed, then they have to realize they're living in a war zone.

The ability to produce every necessity of life renders us independent in war as well as in peace.

I am very conscious that I am not wise at all.