31.   It is to risk leaving out what religion is really about, rather like music without sound, or mathematics without numbers.

32.   Religion is responsible for much injustice affecting ordinary everyday life as well as newspaper-headline material.

33.   Just because the vicar down the road is selfish and insensitive, I am not justified in concluding that therefore religion is bad.

34.   Of course religion can be challenged, but there are plenty of sound reasons for religion.

35.   Religion is basic to life.

36.   The same can be said about music which provides an immensely satisfying spiritual experience for many people for whom religion is totally dead.

37.   Yet by embarking on these difficult waters we are confronting what religion really is, not a safe cardboard version of it neatly packaged up for general retail.

38.   There is a sense which is appreciated in almost all the religions that religion is itself unsatisfactory and has to be left behind.

39.   The two phenomena were linked, for traditional religion had always been a bond of social unity through the ritual assertion of community.

40.   Religion is another variable of limited importance.