Now I think one of the reasons why religion developed in the way that it did over the centuries was precisely to curb this murderous bent that we have as human beings.

Every fundamentalist movement I've studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced at some gut, visceral level that secular liberal society wants to wipe out religion.

The values of Islam are expressed by Muslims clearly. September 11 changed the world, and put Muslims on the spotlight.

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

We are addicted to our egotism, our likes and dislikes and prejudices, and depend upon them for our own sense of identity.

I learned a lot from both, initially Jewish and Muslim theologians that had been missing, perhaps from my rather parochial Catholic upbringing.

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.