There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest the soldier the poet. To know to kill to create.

Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged.

It's not just the effect of technology on the environment on religion on the economic structure on society on politics etc. It's that everything now exists in technology to the point where technology is the new and comprehensive host of nature of life.

Religion may be defined thus: a belief in and homage rendered to existences unseen and causes unknown.

How do you live with evil? Art is traditionally - certainly with my secular background - the answer but art is very self-referential whereas religion claims to go beyond the bounds of human existence.

If God existed and if He cared for humankind He would never have given us religion.

My sense of religion is Einstein's sense of relativity. I don't believe in God. I believe that energy never dies. So the possibility exists that you might be breathing in some other form of Moses or Buddha or Muhammad or Bobby Kennedy or Roosevelt or Martin Luther King or Jesus.

Existentialism is about being a saint without God being your own hero without all the sanction and support of religion or society.

I firmly believe that the mission of religion in the 21st century must be to contribute concretely to the peaceful coexistence of humankind.

Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face some side of God.