The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.

If we are too friendly to nice, decent bishops, we run the risk of buying into the fiction that there's something virtuous about believing things because of faith rather than because of evidence. We run the risk of betraying scientific enlightenment.

Many people want to send their children to faith schools because they get good exam results, but they're not foolish enough to believe that it's because of faith that they get good exam results.

I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine.

I do think imagination is enormously valuable, and that children should be encouraged in their imagination. That's very true.

Design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything. It can only be a proximate explanation. A plane or a car is explained by a designer but that's because the designer himself, the engineer, is explained by natural selection.

People believe the only alternative to randomness is intelligent design.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

I think it is a combination of looks, aura, success, the energies that one gives out, the person you are and the person you feel like that makes you 'desirable.' When the outside world sees you as a man who is responsible for himself and his family, as a man who is fit and sensitive, it kind of ups your desirability.

I believe that fitness needs to come from within you. You need to respect your body. Only then will you have the zeal to maintain it. For me, keeping fit is a part of my lifestyle.

Almost 70 per cent of your fitness battle is won the day you realise what your body needs and when. I've made my own diets, and I decide for myself what works for me.

I look at fitness as a necessity in the same way as how you drink water, eat food, one should look at fitness in a dedicated way. People will look fresh and happy. If you are happy, you in a way look fit.

Many times an actor is stuck for the lack of choices. The same happened with me when I started my career. That was the time when mainly romantic films were being made, and that is what I was offered all the time.

I think it is easier for thinner people to build on a frame once you get lean muscle. I get bored lifting weights at the gym, and it isn't enough as your body becomes stiff. So I train in different ways such as core training, cardio with weights, playing sports such as tennis, cycling, swimming and running 10 km once a week.

What effect am I having on this world? I'm not sure yet. I have my worries, doubts and fears, but the way I'm trying to affect the world is with positive, right action.

Someone might look like an overnight success, but there's a lot of hard work that goes into it, and rightfully so. That's the way it should be. There are exceptions to that rule, but in country music, people really have to pay their dues.

I probably would have never made it through college without baseball, so I'm thankful for that. I really am proud that I got to play on that level.

My dad is a big Outlaw country guy - Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Waylon, Willie. He loves Elvis and turned me onto Elvis. He was always playing me stuff. He and I would sing and entertain the family. We'd have a little skit on Thanksgiving or whatever.

I don't see success as the goal. Obedience is the goal.

Writers write. Dreamers talk about it.

Before Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, there was the same sort of talk of young men sacrificing their lives so that a country might grow - that somehow it had been a great nation-building success for Newfoundland.

The truth is, everybody falls into an incinerator of some measure or other. Not literally one. The question is what are you going to do with those bad times? Are you just going to let them gnaw at you?

You always have these moments when projects are over when you wonder if you'll ever work again. In the end, what it comes down to is that it's a fine line between becoming too enamored of your own success and maintaining the confidence to do what you do and do it well. That's the line every actor, if they're lucky, has to walk.

That's the great thing about being an actor: Stuff shows up that you never thought was going to go down. You get to play or experience an area of the world that - you know, I live a pretty simple life, I'm not much of an adventurer. I like my couch and my television. So when stuff comes up in the job, it's a good deal.

Young people need the hands-on training that comes with a summer job. They need to know how to dress for success and nail job interviews. But most of all, they need mentorship, guidance, and inspiration.

No one has the right to threaten the health, education, and well-being of children by involving them in illegal or inappropriate work.

Typically, during recessionary times, particular groups suffer higher rates of unemployment -African Americans, and Latinos, and in some cases other minority groups. If you don't have a high level of training or education you're going to fall into that category.

My parents raised me and my six siblings with little money... but lots of love.

I would hope more people would have optimism about where the Latino has come. How we have emerged, and that there will be more women, women of color especially Latinas who will get involved.

I want companies who get federal contracts to hire more women and minorities from the local area.

The best advice I can give women at all levels is increase training. There are still areas where we have to break through that glass ceiling.

Some say I'm an overnight success. Well, that was a very long night that lasted about 10 years. But while I do, of course, now feel the pressure having had books that have been very successful, I just know I have to concentrate on writing for myself. I can't worry about genres or markets or what might be commercial or not. That never works.

I am a teacher and the reason I'm a teacher is because I'm learning as hard as I can. I'm not any different from anybody else. I am searching and having some success finding answers.

I believe that any type of education can be great, but an education about ourselves can create something wonderful. I am a comedian, but people have called me a motivational speaker. I don't really consider myself that at all.

When I was 19 years old, both of my parents died in the same year; my mom of cancer and my dad in a car accident. Through the next two or three years and a series of bad decisions - all my own, I might add - I ended up literally homeless, before that was even a word. I even slept occasionally under a pier on the Gulf Coast.

We owe our success to them, and also to the fact that, as the saying goes, two 'Eds' are better than one.

This place? Nothing positive. OK, I want to say something positive. It's positively a dump.

One thing about being famous is the people around you, you pay all their bills so they very rarely disagree with you because they want you to pick up the check.

I truly believe that building bridges, not building walls and not giving into fear, will make our communities better.

Poor people cannot rely on the government to come to help you in times of need. You have to get your education. Then nobody can control your destiny.

I got some cash from agents. I've talked to the NCAA. I think that should be legal. I want some money, too; everybody else is making money. I want to go on dates. I want to go buy myself some new suits. I want to buy myself some new sneakers, and I paid the agents back.

One of the reasons I don't trust the media is you can't have a double standard for guys you like and dislike.

I might go my whole life stealing money. I got paid to play basketball, which is a scam. I get paid to watch basketball, which is a scam.

I just grew up a poor black kid in Alabama with a single mom and two brothers.

Somebody hits me, I'm going to hit him back. Even if it does look like he hasn't eaten in a while.

The main thing to do is relax and let your talent do the work.

These are my new shoes. They're good shoes. They won't make you rich like me, they won't make you rebound like me, they definitely won't make you handsome like me. They'll only make you have shoes like me. That's it.

I think sports has done a disservice for a lot of black kids thinking they can only be successful through athletics and entertainment. I want them to know they can be doctors, lawyers, teachers, fireman, police officers, etc.

If I weren't earning $3 million a year to dunk a basketball, most people on the street would run in the other direction if they saw me coming.

You know it's going to hell when the best rapper out there is white and the best golfer is black.