I study religion because I find it fascinating and problematic. But I struggle with the idea of what religion is, what being religious means. A lot of people assume that if you write about early Christianity, you must be some kind of Sunday-school teacher.

We in Tunisia have no problem with respecting other people's religion, and we have a long tradition of that.

'Black Messiah' is a hell of a name for an album. It can easily be misunderstood. Many will think it's about religion. Some will jump to the conclusion that I'm calling myself a Black Messiah. For me, the title is about all of us. It's about the world. It's about an idea we can all aspire to. We should all aspire to be a Black Messiah.

It's totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race - to despise an entire nation - to vilify an entire religion.

Religion is like magic. It is all about tricks.

You're not free if you can't marry the person you love because a county clerk is imposing his or her interpretation of religion on you.

The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.

I am utterly struck how, 300 years after his execution, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

One's religion is one's own possession and he has a right to it.

Los Angeles is such a great meritocracy. Where can someone with my background - don't have the right family background, the right religion, the right provenance or whatever you want to call it - I come here and I'm accepted. The city's been good to me. And I want to give back.

Jesus was born a Jew, and he died a Jew. It never occurred to him to establish a new religion. He never crossed himself: he had no reason to. He never set one foot in a church. He went to synagogue.

Cinema is my religion. It is a way to make people sensitive, through emotions. To make them feel, experience empathy. People are touched and act ethically when they are emotionally touched.

It was the British who defined religion to divide and rule. That is what created the heat. That is what created the cut. Partition happened because of the rulers, fueled by a few powerful families on both sides who stood to gain. It is the politicians that keep everyone fighting.

Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn't necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious concept.

Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.

The waves of religion based on terrorism in the 1990s are based on the tormented response of a mutilated Muslim society whose progressive forces have been savagely emasculated. Why on earth is the Arab world so hostile to women? Why can it not see women as a force for development?

I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm - not all - that religion used to fill.

As Americans, we're not sure we share values. We're sometimes even afraid to use the word 'values.' We talk about teaching ethics in schools - people say, 'What ethics? Whose ethics? Maybe we can't.' And they confuse that with teaching of religion.

What makes a comedian has nothing to do with religion. Think of Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, who were all Catholics.

You can believe what you want religiously. Religion is one thing, but science, provable science, is something else.

Nothing has done more to separate and divide human beings one from another than exclusivist organized religion.

Organized religion preaches Order and Love but spawns Chaos and Fury. Why?

When it comes to me I follow the religion of humanity.

Our laboratory is a place that celebrates diversity and is totally open to all differences, not just sex but also age, ethnicity, religion and other traditions.