The river of my title is a river of DNA, and it flows through time, not space. It is a river of information, not a river of bones and tissues. - Richard Dawkins

Everybody is an atheist in saying that there is a god - from Ra to Shiva - in which he does not believe. All that the serious and objective atheist does is to take the next step and to say that there is just one more god to disbelieve in.

Next to the true beauty and magic of the real world, supernatural spells and stage tricks seem cheap and tawdry by comparison. The magic of reality is neither supernatural nor a trick, but – quite simply – wonderful. Wonderful, and real. Wonderful because real.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.