A science can diagnose a cancer and can even find a cure for it, but it can't, and a scientist will be the first to say, it's can't help you to deal with the stress and disappointment and terror that comes with a diagnosis, and nor can it help you to die well, like Socrates, kindly, not railing against faith, but in possession of your own death. For these imponderable questions people have turned to mythos.

Religion is a practical discipline and in the 17th century in the West, we turned it onto a head trip. But it's like dancing, or swimming, or driving, which you can't learn by texts. You have to get into the car and learn how to manipulate the vehicle.

We are opinionated society. We're very happy to spout forth our own views; we're not good about listening. We have to listen to other's stories. Learn to listen to the stories of the terrorists just as we hope that they will listen to ours because very often these narratives express frustrations, fears, and anxieties that most societies can safely ignore.

There must be no coercion in matters of faith!

Mythology and science both extend the scope of human beings. Like science and technology, mythology, as we shall see, is not about opting out of this world, but about enabling us to live more intensely within it.

Illness itself can make you angry, enraged, furious, and it made me angry, enraged, and furious. I don't think it brought me to God at all. It depends how you deal with it. And I think that, at its best, three little words that always have to be applied to religion, religion can help you to deal with that.

[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68)