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Whether one believes or not, religion is as real a force in the life of the world as economics or politics, and it demands fair-minded attention. Even if you think the entire religious enterprise is at best misguided and at worst counterproductive, it remains vital, inspiring great good and, sometimes, great evil.

I think that the practice of religion allows one to discover emotional and psychological truth of a kind not available in the secular world.

Although religion might be useful in developing a solid moral framework - and enforcing it - we can quite easily develop moral intuitions without relying on religion.

It can be demonstrated that in any society there is a distribution of religious tastes and concerns.

I think students should know something about religion as a historical phenomenon, in the same way that they should know something about socialism and humanism and the other great ideas that have shaped political philosophies and therefore the course of human events.

We live in secular world now, but most of our art and culture is rooted in religion.

There's no reason to bring religion into it. I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible.

Religion has become so many different things. Religion is an economic thing for some people. Religion is a gun.

I wasn't looking for religion; I was looking for a world view.

Religion has a good place and it has its good people.