If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology.

Here in America, religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. They've lost the Axial Age vision of concern for everybody.

Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and has something unique to teach us.

Well, logos is science or reason, something that helps us to function practically and effectively in the world, and it must therefore be closely in tune and reflect accurately the realities of the world around us.

I was a lousy nun. I couldn't do it. I couldn't find God. It wasn't suitable for me. It is suitable for very few people.

Compassion is not feeling sorry for others. It's not soft. It requires an intellectual effort.

Like art, religion is an imaginative and creative effort to find a meaning and value in human life.