A mode of knowledge rooted in silence and intuitive insight which gives meaning to life but which cannot be explained in rational terms.

We are what we are because of the hard work, insights and achievements of countless others.

Western liberal humanism is not something that comes naturally to us: like an appreciation of art or poetry, it has to be cultivated. Humanism is itself a religion without God-not all religions, of course, are theistic. Our ethical secular ideal has it's own disciplines of mind and heart and gives people the means of finding faith in the ultimate meaning of human life that were once provided by the more conventional religions.

God is not good, or wise, or intelligent anyway that we know. So, people like Maimonides in the Jewish tradition, Eboncina in the Muslim tradition, Thomas Aquinas in the Christian tradition, insisted that we couldn't even say that God existed because our concept of existence is far too limited and they would have been horrified by the ease with which we talk about God today.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, every single leading Muslim intellectual was in love with the west, and wanted their countries to look just like Britain and France.

Sometimes I call myself a freelance, I can't see any one of the great religions as superior to others.

Compassion is a practically acquired knowledge, like dancing. You must do it and practice diligently day by day.