A refreshing peice

about what religion really is. Faith humbles and inspires. It promotes compassion, unity, and understanding. Fundamentalism, in all its stripes, promotes just the opposite.

Some striking quotes:

"It's a mistake to define God," she says. "I gave it up a long time ago. . . . 'To define' literally means to set limits. That is a travesty to try to define a reality that must go beyond our human thinking. The idea of a God overseeing all of this death and despair is untenable. That's the antithesis of God. If you looked at the history of the 20th century, who is overseeing this? Elie Wiesel says that God died at Auschwitz. That's just one human idea of God as overseer, and it's a childish idea of God."

"allow the pain to break you open. Then you can begin your quest. Because that's when you can learn compassion. If you shield yourself from suffering as a lot of our society is set up to, then it's hard to relate to suffering in others. Once you discover what it is that gives you pain, then you must refuse under any circumstances to inflict that pain on others. It's quite easy to numb yourself instead of looking at it as a spiritual opportunity."

"Christianity is about looking at other people's point of view. It's 'kenosis,' or emptying of the self. It means you have to dethrone yourself from the center of your world and put others there. Religion is hard. But then you begin to lose the hard edges of yourself and start to glimpse the other. All of the Axial Agers practiced what the Chinese called jian ai or concern for everybody. Not just for your own group, but for everybody. And if we don't do that, I don't see how we can save our planet."