Geniuses Are Not Always Pleasant People.

He [aristotle] Pointed Out That People Who Had Become Initiates In The Various Mystery Religions Were Not Required To Learn Any Facts 'but To Experience Certain Emotions And To Be Put In A Certain Disposition.' Hence His Famous Literary Theory That Tragedy Effected A Purification (katharsis) Of The Emotions Of Terror And Pity That Amounted To An Experience Of Rebirth.

Zionism Was Originally A Rebellion Against Religious Judaism And The Plo Charter Was Essentially Secularist. But Because The Conflict Was Allowed To Fester Without A Resolution, Religion Got Sucked Into The Escalating Cycle Of Violence And Became Part Of The Problem.

Compassion Doesn't, Of Course, Mean Feeling Sorry For People, Or Pity, Which Is How The Word Has Become Emasculated In A Way.

My Study Of Religion, Which I Regard In Many Ways As An Art Form, Is A Search For Meaning.

When The Horror Recedes And The World Resumes Its Normal Shape, You Cannot Forget It. You Have Seen What Is Really There, The Empty Horror That Exists When The Consoling Illusion Of Our Mundane Experience Is Stripped Away, So You Can Never Respond To The World In Quite The Same Way Again.