It is people who are violent, rather than "religions"; and since we secularised our politics we have had two major world wars, the Holocaust, the Soviet Gulag, and the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - none of which were inspired by religion. If we want to understand the dangers of our world, we can no longer accept the old received ideas.

Many entire nations are marginalised by the more powerful nations. That is causing imbalance, violence and terror. Women must do their best to introduce another perspective.

Buddhists talk about nirvana in very much the same terms as monotheists describe God.

The hajj is one of the five essential practices of Islam; when they make the pilgrimage to Mecca, Muslims ritually act out the central principles of their faith.

There are some forms of religion that are bad, just as there's bad cooking or bad art or bad sex, you have bad religion too.

there is no ascent to the heights without prior descent into darkness, no new life without some form of death.

I had tried, as I thought as a nun, to open myself to God and God seemed totally uninterested in me. The heavens remained closed and opaque. I now realize, of course, that I had a very, very inadequate idea of God. I was expecting clouds to part, a little sort of whisper in my ear, and of course, that's not what God is. God is not another being; we are talking about something much more profound.