One thing that could break the toxic spell on inner lives that keeps people going to these blatantly hypocritical and intolerant "churches" would be to tell a simple, luminous truth:

FAITH is not the same as BELIEF!

Both Christians and Muslims constantly get this wrong.

BELIEF is assent, whether voluntary or coerced, in a set of propositions about God or Jesus or whatever. Most of these propositions are question-begging at best, or sheer balderdash at worst.

Here is a question-begging proposition: "Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God."

Here are a few unanswered questions:

1. What do you mean by "only begotten"? Are we not all begotten, not made?

2. What do you mean by "Son of God"? Is not every human being--nay, every living being, a child of God?

And here are some examples of pure balderdash:

1. God created the heavens and the earth and all creatures in seven days, only six thousand years ago.

2. Jesus rose from the dad and ascended into heaven to sit on the right hand of the Father, from whence he will come again to judge the quick and the dead.

Why are they balderdash? Because the first has been decisively disproven by science, and the second is pure, childish mythology, like Santa Claus and his Reindeer at the North Pole, that no reasonable person should ever believe, if they live in the real world.

So if Faith is NOT unquestioned belief in such idiotic propositions, what is it?

An intuitive acceptance of the sacredness of all life, and of reality itself, hence a TRUST in God, however we may define him, her, or it. Faith is what we all have (and need) in common, regardless of our individual beliefs. And belief is what separates us.

Faith is best expressed, for me, in the mantra at the core of the Prayer of Jesus: "Thy Will be Done."