It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion. I don't think people have noticed that, but it's got all the sort of terms that religions use... The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can't win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.

I'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty. Revere and respect Gaia. Have trust in Gaia. But not faith.

Haven't two hundred years of failed missionary work overseas taught anybody anything? You can't convert people to anything - whether religion, or something as inane as our flicks.

If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it.

I was 21 in 1968, so I'm as much a child of the '60s as is possible to be. In those years the subject of religion had really almost disappeared the idea that religion was going to be a major force in the life of our societies, in the West anyway, would have seemed absurd in 1968.