Fundamentalism isn't about religion, it's about power.

Don't let the zealots make Muslim a terrifying word."

[1,000 Days 'Trapped Inside a Metaphor' (Columbia University / The New York Times, December 12, 1991)]

From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.

We humans are naturally disposed to worship gods and heroes, to build our pantheons and valhallas. I would rather see that impulse directed into the adoration of daft singers, thicko footballers and air-headed screen actors than into the veneration of dogmatic zealots, fanatical preachers, militant politicians and rabid cultural commentators.

The politics of the possible was being replaced by the politics of purity.