Religion is never going to go away, and anyone who thinks it will doesn't understand what religion is. It is a language to describe the experience of human nature, so for as long as people struggle to describe what it means to be alive, it will be a ready-made language to express those feelings.
Reza AslanTrump is not presidential: this is not normal, it cannot be treated as normal. We have to fight with our last breath to make sure that the vision for the country that this racist white nationalist Bannon has cannot be achieved in this country. We are a country that, whether he likes it or not, is about to become the first nation in the world that is majority minorities.
Reza Aslan[Islam] is the dynamic conviction that a person's spiritual and worldly responsibilities are one and the same, that an individuals duty to the community is indistinguishable from his or her duty to God.
Reza AslanBut perhaps the most important innovation in the doctrine of jihad was its outright prohibition of all but strictly defensive wars. โFight in the way of God those who fight you,โ the Quran says, โbut do not begin hostilities; God does not like the aggressorโ (2:190). Elsewhere the Quran is more explicit: โPermission to fight is given only to those who have been oppressed ... who have been driven from their homes for saying, 'God is our Lord' โ (22:39; emphasis added).
Reza Aslan