I have never made fun of religion. Religion is something I don't even want to mess with because I am really afraid of the clouds opening up and my being struck by lightning.

I wish your increase in holiness number love religion and righteousness and wait you and cease to contend with these men that are gone from us for there is nothing that shall convince them but judgment.

Religion is run by thought police. 'Obey. Listen. This is what you do. Don't ask questions. Go die for your country.' The spirituality says 'Okay you can die for your country but know what you're doing while you're doing it.'

I was 21 in 1968 so I'm as much a child of the '60s as is possible to be. In those years the subject of religion had really almost disappeared the idea that religion was going to be a major force in the life of our societies in the West anyway would have seemed absurd in 1968.

If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion I would say I was against it.

Haven't two hundred years of failed missionary work overseas taught anybody anything? You can't convert people to anything - whether religion or something as inane as our flicks.

It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion. I don't think people have noticed that but it's got all the sort of terms that religions use... The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can't win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.

I'm a scientist not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty.

So much of religion is exegesis. I would rather follow in the footprints of Christ than all of the dogma.

Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost.