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.

We're all sick of holy wars and bloodshed because religion is supposed to give us life and a better life and is supposed to bring out our best self. When it results in mass destruction and hatred and anxiety it's the antithesis I think of what religion was designed to do.

I'm not defined by where I came from. I never took part in the rules and hatred that sometimes go along with religion. But if my parents are happy with what they believe then I'm happy to stay out of their way. We agree to disagree.

The latest horror to hit the U.S. looks to have been caused by people of Middle Eastern origin bearing Muslim names. Again shame. This fuels more hatred for a religion and a people who have nothing to do with these events.

My parents had this relationship that was really terrifying. I mean the level of hatred that they had and the level of physical abuse - my mother would beat up my father basically - and I think I was drawn to images on television that were bright and reflective.

Why should a great and powerful nation like the United States allow its relationship with more than a billion Muslims around the world to be defined by the narrow hatred and nihilistic actions of an exceptionally small minority of Muslims?

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

The President in talking about freedom and democracy is sparking a wave of very positive democratic sentiment that might help us override both Islamic fundamentalism that has formed in that region and also some of the hatred for our policies of invading Iraq.

Politics... have always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

Politics as a practise whatever its professions has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.