The only religious way to think of death is as part and parcel of life.

For those who live neither with religious consolations about death nor with a sense of death (or of anything else) as natural death is the obscene mystery the ultimate affront the thing that cannot be controlled. It can only be denied.

Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.

My dad was a militant atheist or is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland but wasn't especially religious.

I haven't been baptised. My dad's not in the church and is not a religious person. My mum is more spiritual - she does Thai-chi and goes to Stonehenge and things like that. I'm proud to be pagan. Finland is not really a religious country. I'm still looking for my god.

I'm not a religious person. My mom was of Jewish blood and my dad was Protestant.

In times of conflict war poverty or religious fundamentalism women and children are the first and most numerous victims. Women need all their courage today.

When the soul drifts uncertainly between life and the dream between the mind's disorder and the return to cool reflection it is in religious thought that we should seek consolation.

The first reason for the preponderant influence of those Evangelicals who define themselves as advocates of Religious Right theological and political ideologies is that they have both the financial means and technological know-how to make widespread use of modern electronic forms of communication.

In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.

The best way in the world to deceive believers is to cloak a message in religious language and declare that it conveys some new insight from God.

But every great scripture whether Hebrew Indian Persian or Chinese apart from its religious value will be found to have some rare and special beauty of its own and in this respect the original Bible stands very high as a monument of sublime poetry and of artistic prose.

Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth goodness beauty love and compassion and also intuition creativity insight and focused attention.

Canadians tend to be a bit more religious than most Europeans - though not more than the Poles or Ukrainians. Most important their attitude to immigration and ethnic minorities is more positive than that of most Europeans.

But I do think that we approach music in of itself with a religious attitude.

Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church everyone present knows what is going to happen that night but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.

There must be something solemn serious and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad it must not grin or snicker if sad it must not scream or curse.