Fundamentalists Are Not Friends Of Democracy. And

It Is People Who Are Violent, Rather Than "religions"; And Since We Secularised Our Politics We Have Had Two Major World Wars, The Holocaust, The Soviet Gulag, And The Atomic Attacks On Hiroshima And Nagasaki - None Of Which Were Inspired By Religion. If We Want To Understand The Dangers Of Our World, We Can No Longer Accept The Old Received Ideas.

In Order To Always Treat Others, As We Would Wish To Be Treated Ourselves, We Have To Learn About Each Other. Not Just Relying On An Op-ed Piece We May Have Read Here, Or A Half-remembered Interview On The Television Program There That Happens To Chime With Our Own Views.

For Centuries, The Muslims Were Able To Co-exist Perfectly Well With Jews And Christians In The Middle East.

Religious Ideas And Practices Take Root Not Because They Are Promoted By Forceful Theologians, Nor Because They Can Be Shown To Have A Sound Historical Or Rational Basis, But Because They Are Found In Practice To Give The Faithful A Sense Of Sacred Transcendence.

Compassion Is Not Feeling Sorry For Others. It's Not Soft. It Requires An Intellectual Effort.