When I'm trying to convince my wife of something that she is skeptical of I'll say, "I swear to god," out of habit. She usually says, "But you don't believe in god," so I have to come up with something real like, "If I'm lying, you can kick me in the nuts."
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
