You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental mind-shaping driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

Religion creates community community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good... There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighborliness.

Well right now I'm very fascinated with 1920s Berlin. I mean probably the more interesting thing would be to go to the beginning of civilization or precivilization - like polytheistic times. It would be interesting to see what came before modern religion and culture - what circumstances created the environment or the need for it.

If religion had a good purpose then man would have created something great. But we're man: we mess up everything. We mess up nature. We mess up God. We take what is given to us and make it into what we think it should be.

What is especially important is addressing the question of how religion can be enforced through political means and what can be done to create a political environment that on the one hand acknowledges the role of religion in society while on the other hand does not impose one religion on the populace at the expense of all others.

I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves.

Money creates a power relationship between the payer and the payee.

There's a lot about the character. It doesn't always happen but there are some characters you really create a relationship with almost as if they were your friend. And you never get into their heads again or think like them.

Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.

We need to understand that we are not each others' enemies in this country. And it is only the political class that derives its power by creating friction. It is only the media that derives its importance by creating friction... that uses every little thing to create this chasm between people. This is not who we are.