[Sam the Sham]

This was in the Guardian ?

Something actually respectful of organized religion ?

[2banana]

That's OK - If a Muslim misses services, he gets a not-so-nice visit from the Mullah - coming soon to England...

[CzarNicky]

"I want the feelgood factor, but not the cost of commitment"

This is the indictment of our age.

[Maceman]

I have no disrespect for organized religion, but personally, when I feel the need to talk to God, I prefer to go to a local cemetery, read the tombstones for a while, and then find a quiet spot (preferably inside an empty chapel) and pray out loud where nobody can hear me.

I always come out of the cemetery with a great feeling of peace and reverence.

[oblomov]

IMO...The true historical legacy of 9/11 will be an existential awakening, and it will happen even for the vast majority of the utopian left. The 1990s will be seen as an oddity, a time of forgetting at the end of a century of mass catastrophes.

Crumbs Or The Loaf
by Robinson Jeffers

If one should tell them what's clearly seen
They'd not understand; if they understood they would not believe;
If they understood and believed they'd say,
"Hater of men, annihilating with a sterile enormous
Splendor our lives: where are our lives?"
A little chilled perhaps, but not hurt. But it's quite true
The invulnerable love is not bought for nothing.
It is better no doubt to give crumbs than the loaf: make fables again,
Tell people not to fear death, toughen
Their bones if possible with bitter fables not to fear life.
—And one's own, not to have pity too much;
For it seems compassion sticks longer than the other colors, in this bleaching cloth.