Now religions start from a very different place indeed.

It's only recently that we've strangely begun to forget it.

We all, I think, believe in compassion.

As Carl Sagan, another recently dead hero, put it,

And once we get rid of ego, then we're ready to see the Divine.

If this weren't a Muslim family, we wouldn't be here.

I've become acutely aware of the centrality of compassion in all the major world faiths.

I don't quite mean that the golden rule itself is written in our genes, but you can go to a hunter gatherer society that has had no exposure to any of the great religious traditions, no exposure to ethical philosophy, and you'll find, if you spend time with these people, that, basically, they believe that one good turn deserves another, and that bad deeds should be punished.

The other things that religions do is to arrange time.

Nothing to kill or die for

This is the pure religion.

It meant I commit myself. I engage myself.

So, let's take a look at how this all plays out then on a global scale.

I don't know, religious medal?

An identity was defined primarily by religion.

Which God? Which Religion?

Are you religious, John?

Religious, yes.

I don't believe in religion.

And that is the spell that I want to break.

And within Jewish teachings, the rabbinic teachings, we have Hillel, who taught that you shouldn't do to others what you don't like being done to yourself.

In effect, they are the infidels.

God is is ness . God is spirit.

He has no religious mind.

So this is all some religious thing?

Religion has nothing to do with this.

'the year of our lord'

Not so if you're adopting a religious mindset.

Where do we get these models? We get them from others.

Maybe we'll put a cross over there to signify that, when we wanna be non religious, we say 'common era' 'before the common era' when we wanna be religious, we say A.D. which means 'the year of our lord'.

On the contrary, it's a complex metaphysical worldview.

Nonsense, says the religious world view.

How many people here would say that religion is important to them?

Come on! You were someone in religious history?

My parents are religious fanatics.

We delayed the start of our experiments in 1999 until we completed a year and a half bioethical review as to whether we should try and make an artificial species.

Well, I guess people consider it not normal .

More a faith.

Christianity and Islam are two different religions.

And there, for the first time, I encountered the other religious traditions

But I've become increasingly interested in religion.

A religious fit, they say.

I don't follow a known religion. No.

You go to Wikipedia and the first map you find is this.

In this one sketch, Leonardo was able to combine the mathematics, religion, philosophy, architecture, and artistic skill of his age.