An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence.
Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists.
Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil. It is as if there were a God who said to us, 'I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It's up to you.'
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
It is all a matter of time scale. An event that would be unthinkable in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million.
Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.
The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus [and] the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from one another. The quarantine is lifted only for those with sufficient self-knowledge and judgement to have safely traveled from star to star.
There are many hypotheses in science that are wrong. That's perfectly alright; it's the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process.
We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.
We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.
With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.