I don't think hell exists. I happen to believe in life after death but I don't think it's got a thing to do with reward and punishment. Religion is always in the control business and that's something which people don't really understand.

Praying and living deeply, richly and fully have become for me almost indistinguishab le. Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. It is not necessarily words addressed heavenward. Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. Prayer is what I am doing when I love wastefully, passionately and wondrously and invite others to do so.

Some people in the church, like Martin Luther King, Jr., came out against segregation. But if you look at the bulk of organized religion, you will discover that it endorsed slavery and quoted the Bible to approve it; the Pope even owned slaves.

I see Christianity in very humanistic terms.

I experience God as the power of love.

There's an awful lot of biblical ignorance, and the church perpetuates that ignorance.

I think the story of the Christian faith is how you can become more deeply and fully human, not how you can become religious. And I don't see any indication that being religious makes you more moral.