Creation

Centuries ago, sailors on long voyages used to leave a pair of pigs on every deserted island. Or they'd leave a pair of goats. Either way, on any future visit, the island would be a source of meat. These islands, they were pristine.

When they were in school, Peter used to say that everything you do is a self-portrait.

People believe in God because the world is very complicated and they think it is very unlikely that anything as complicated as a flying squirrel or the human eye or a brain could happen by chance.

When their fuel runs out, ... stars collapse dramatically in upon themselves, and as they do so, enormous amounts of gravitational energy are released and converted into heat.

In the beginning of time the great creator, Reason, made the earth to be a common treasury, to preserve beasts, birds, fishes and man, the lord that was to govern this creation … Not one word was spoken in the beginning that one branch of mankind

People had been working for so many years to make the world a safe, organized place. Nobody realized how boring it would become.

You and I also began with the Big Bang, because all substance in the universe is an organic unity. Once in a primeval age all matter was gathered in a clump so enormously massive that a pinhead weighed many billions of tons.

Carbon lies at the centre of life, its ubiquitous and indispensable ingredient. Carbon atoms link together in chains, and bind with other atoms, to make the whole array of organic chemicals that constitute life itself, from DNA to toenails.

The Earth was born from debris that circled the nascent Sun. It was a planet spun from dust and rock, and one of the smaller masses that were trapped in the thrall of the Sun's attraction.