We can’t control whether we are rewarded for our endeavours, with cash or recognition. It is not up to us how much cash or time we get on Earth, but it is down to us how we spend it. Julian Baggini Read Quote
Big sporting events and spectacles might give the national morale a shot in the arm, but they are too transient and taste-specific to stand as robust symbols of nationhood. Julian Baggini Read Quote
Looking out over the port of Dover, with the endless steam of boats coming in and out, every British citizen is reminded that belonging here has never been about blood or genes. It’s simply about being at home on this discrete island and being aware of the privileges and responsibilities that brings. Julian Baggini Read Quote
The supposed revelations of God to humanity through Christ, or the word of God to Mohammed through the angel Gabriel, had the power they did because they indicated new truths, new directions for followers. Julian Baggini Read Quote
I don’t think anyone who genuinely embraced sincerity, charity and modesty could be intolerant or divisive. Julian Baggini Read Quote
The reason to be an atheist is not that it makes us feel better or gives us a more rewarding life. The reason to be an atheist is simply that there is no God and we would prefer to live in full recognition of that, accepting the consequences, even if it makes us less happy. Julian Baggini Read Quote
The border between the natural and the supernatural, religion and philosophy, may not always be clear. But there are lines, and we should know and accept which side of it we are on. Julian Baggini Read Quote
Atheists have to live with the knowledge that there is no salvation, no redemption, no second chances. Lives can go terribly wrong in ways that can never be put right. Julian Baggini Read Quote
The simplest and clearest motivation for taking animal welfare seriously is the recognition that pain is in and of itself a bad thing, and that to inflict significant amounts of it unnecessarily is wrong. Julian Baggini Read Quote
The modern believer is not suspicious enough, which is perhaps why, when they try to construct arguments in their defence, the convictions are left doing all the work and reason, debilitated by neglect, weakly fails to prop them up. Julian Baggini Read Quote
