“Religious experiences also occur only when emotions run high and only to those who were predisposed to believe.”

“Religious beliefs are sometimes based not on testimony by others but on religious experiences of the believer.”

“Take a pinch of belief in God, add a dash of desire to experience God, stir in emotion to taste, and you have a recipe for religious experience.”

“To overlook extra possibilities is the fallacy of false dichotomy.”

“God’s commands are arbitrary if He has no reason to command one act rather than another; but, if He does have reasons for His commands, then His reasons rather than His commands are whatmake acts immoral.”

“I'll know coffee works without cream and sugar when I see people buying unsweetened bakers chocolate for Valentine's Day.”

“Perhaps the perusal of such works may, without injustice, be compared with the use of opiates, baneful, when habitually and constantly resorted to, but of most blessed power in those moments of pain and of langour, when the whole head is sore, and the whole heart sick. If those who rail indiscriminately at this species of composition, were to consider the quantity of actual pleasure it produces, and the much greater proportion of real sorrow and distress which it alleviates, their philanthropy ought to moderate their critical pride, or religious intolerance.”