It Is Time That We Admitted That

Advance Warning Of Katrina's Path Was Wrested From Mute Nature By Meteorological Calculations And Satellite Imagery. God Told No One Of His Plans. Had The Residents Of New Orleans Been Content To Rely On The Beneficence Of God, They Wouldn't Have Known That A Killer Hurricane Was Bearing Down Upon Them Until They Felt The First Gusts Of Wind On Their Faces. And Yet, As Will Come As No Surprise To You, A Poll Conducted By The Washington Post Found That 80 Percent Of Katrina's Survivors Claim That The Event Only Strengthened Their Faith In God.

Either God Can Do Nothing To Stop Catastrophes Like This, Or He Doesn't Care To, Or He Doesn't Exist. God Is Either Impotent, Evil, Or Imaginary. Take Your Pick, And Choose Wisely.

Science, In The Broadest Sense, Includes All Reasonable Claims To Knowledge About Ourselves And The World.

You Can Do What You Decide To Do — But You Cannot Decide What You Will Decide To Do.

The Problem I Want To Talk To You About Tonight Is The Problem Of Belief. What Does It Mean To Believe? We Use This Word All The Time, And I Think Behind It Lurk Some Really Extraordinary Taboos And Confusions. What I Want To Argue Tonight Is That How We Talk About Belief- How We Fail To Criticize Or Criticize The Beliefs Of Others, Has More Importance To Us Personally, More Consequence To Us Personally And To Civilization Than Perhaps Anything Else That Is In Our Power To Influence.