school teacher who expounded to us the thesis that the extinction of dinosaurs was on account of their being too large to enter Noah’s ark. Even as children, we sensed that there was something a bit odd about that hypothesis. Why did God create atheists? It’s a whimsical question that the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has posed on several occasions. His answer is that they prevent us from believing the wrong things or investing too much in matters of secondary importance. That is good advice. The