1) "Like art, religion has been an attempt to find meaning and value in life, despite the suffering that flesh is heir to." page xix

      2) Referring to the old fertility goddess: "She was called Inana in ancient Sumeria, Ishtar in Babylon, Anat in Canaan, Isis in Egypt and Aphrodite in Greece, and remarkably similar stories were devised in all these cultures to express her role in the spiritual lives of the people." page 5

      3) Referring to the God of Jacob of the Bible: "He struck a bargain: in return for El's special protection, Jacob would make him his elohim, the only god who counted. Israelite belief in God was deeply pragmatic. Abraham and Jacob both put their faith in El because he worked for them: they did not sit down and prove that he existed; El was not a philosophical abstraction. In the ancient world, mana was a self-evident fact of life, and a god proved his worth if he could transmit this effectively. This pragmatism would always be a factor in the history of God. People would continue to adopt a particular conception of the devine because it worked for them, not because it was scientifically or philosophically sound." page 17

      4) Referring to the god of Moses who lead the Hebrews out of the land of Egypt: "The God who may have inspired the first successful peasant's uprising in history is a God of social revolution. In all three faiths, he has inspired an idea of social justice, even though it has to be said that Jews, Christians, and Muslims have often failed to live up to this ideal and have transformed him into the God of the status quo." page 20

      5) Referring to biblical events where gentiles (non-Jews) were executed: "Paganism did not usually seek to impose itself on other people- Jezebel is an interesting exception- since there was always room for another god in the pantheon alongside the others. These early mythical events show that from the first Yahwism demanded a violent repression and denial of other faiths. . ."

      6) "Amos was the first of the prophets to emphasize the importance of social justice and compassion." page 46

      7) Referring to the conquest of Canaan by Joshua and the Judges and the concept of the elect of God:"Now, however, the bloodshed had been given a religious rationale. The dangers of such theologies of election, which are not qualified by the transcendent perspective of an Isiah, are clearly shown in the holy wars that have scarred the history of monotheism." page 54-55

      8) "By the first century CE, Judaism was in a very strong position in the Roman empire. One-tenth of the whole population were Jews. People in the Roman empire were searching for new religious solutions; monotheistic ideas were in the air, and local gods were increasingly seen as mere manifestations of a more encompassing divinity." page 71

      9) "Jews were not to think of God as a Big Brother, watching their every from above; instead they were to cultivate a sense of God within each human being so that our dealings with others became sacred encounters." page 78

      10) "The development of Christian belief in the Incarnation was a gradual, complex process. Jesus himself certainly never claimed to be God." page 81

      11) Regarding Jesus' words: "By faith, of course, he did not mean adopting the correct theology but cultivating an inner attitude of surrender and openness to God." page 82

      12) "There were, however, no detailed theories about the crucifixion as an atonement for some "original sin" of Adam: we shall see that this theology did not emerge until the fourth century and was only important in the West." page 87

      13) "In the Roman empire, Christianity was first seen as a branch of Judaism, but when Christians made it clear that they were no longer members of the synagogue, they were regarded with contempt as a religio of fanatics who had committed the cardinal sin of impiety by breaking with the parent faith." page 91

      14) "Nobody expected religion to be a challenge or to provide an answer to the meaning of life. People turned to philosophy for that kind of enlightenment. In the Roman empire of late antiquity, people worshipped the gods to ask for help during a crisis, to secure divine blessing for the state and to experience a healing sense of continuity with the past. Religion was a matter of cult and ritual rather than ideas; it was based on emotion, not on ideology or consciously adopted theory." page 91

      15) "In the early years of Islamic history, therefore, speculation about the nature of God often sprang from a political concern about the state of the caliphate and the establishment." page 159

      16) "He [Luther] had anticipated the solutions of Pascal and Kierkegaard to the problem of faith. Faith did not mean assent to the propositions of a creed and it was not "belief" in orthodox opinion. Instead, faith was a leap in the dark toward a reality that had to be taken on trust." page 278

      17) "A sense of peace, serenity, and loving-kindness are the hallmarks of all true religious insight." page 279

      18) Regarding Pascal's philosophy: True, humanity cannot batter its way to the distant God by arguments and logic or by accepting the teaching of an institutional church. But by making the personal decision to surrender to God, the faithful feel themselves transformed, becoming "faithful, honest, humble, grateful, full of good works, a true friend." " page 299

      19) Regarding Spinoza's philosophy: "The very idea of "God" contains a validation of God's existence because a perfect being which did not exist would be a contradiction in terms." page 312

      20) "Spinoza had used the word "God" for historical reasons: he agreed with atheists, who claim that reality cannot be divided into a part which is "God" and a part which is not-God. If God cannot be separated from anything else, it is impossible to say that "he" exists in any ordinary sense. What Spinoza was saying in effect was that there was no God that corresponded to the meaning we usually attach to that word."

      21) "Diderot had taken Spinoza one step further. Instead of saying that there was no God but nature, Diderot had claimed that there was only nature and no God at all." page 343

      22) "Like sexuality, religion is a human need that affects life at every level." page 362

      23) "Repression of religion can bred fundamentalism, just as inadequate forms of theism can result in a rejection of God." page 362

      24) "Christian fundamentalists seem to have little regard for the loving compassion of Christ. They are swift to condemn the people they see as the "enemies of God." Most would consider Jews and Muslims destined for hellfire, and Urquart has argued that all oriental religions are inspired by the devil." page 390

      25) "They are also denying a crucial monotheistic theme. Ever since the prophets of Israel reformed the old pagan cult of Yahweh, the God of monotheists had promoted the ideal of compassion.

      We have seen that compassion was a characteristic of most of the ideologies that were created during the Axial Age." page 391

      26) "There had often been a distinction between people who practice a cultic form of religion and those who have cultivated a sense of the God of compassion. The prophets fulminated against their contemporaries who thought that temple worship was sufficient. Jesus and St. Paul both made it clear that external observances was useless if it was not accompanied by charity: it was little better than sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Mohammed came into conflict with those Arabs who wanted to worship the pagan goddesses alongside al-Lah in the ancient rites, without implementing the compassionate ethos that God demanded as a condition of all true religion. There had been a similar divide in the pagan world of Rome: the old cultic religion celebrated the status quo, while the philosophers preached a message that they believed would change the world. It may be that the compassionate religion of the One God has only been observed by a minority; most have found it difficult to face the extremity of the God-experience with its uncompromising ethical demands. Ever since Moses brought the tablets of the Law from Mount Sinai, the majority have preferred the worship of a Golden Calf, a traditional, unthreatening image of a deity they have constructed for themselves, with its consoling, time-honored rituals. Aaron, the high priest, presided over the manufacture of the golden effigy. The religious establishment itself often is deaf to the inspiration of prophets and mystics who bring news of a much more demanding God.

      God can also be used as an unworthy panacea, as an alternative to mundane life and as the object of indulgent fantasy. The idea of God has frequently been used as the opium of the people. This is a particular danger when he is conceived as an-other Being- just like us, only bigger and better- in his own heaven, which is itself conceived as a paradise of earthly delights. Yet originally, "God" was used to help people concentrate on this world and to face up to the unpleasant reality. Even the pagan cult of Yahweh, for all it manifest faults, stressed his involvement in current events in profane time, as opposed to the sacred time of rite and myth. The prophets of Israel forced their people to confront their own social culpability and impending political catastrophe in the name of the God who revealed himself in these historical occurrences." pages 392-393

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