Anything you don't understand, Mr. Rankin, you attribute to God. God for you is where you sweep away all the… — Carl Sagan

The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can't all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It's a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I'm not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they're called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation.

Do we, holding that the gods exist,

deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams

and lies, while random careless chance and

change alone control the world?

In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work.