There's nothing more distasteful than an academic having to, like, trot out his credentials. You really come off as a jerk when you do that.
I'm interested in the origins of the religious experience, how the history of religion has evolved over the last umpteen thousand years, and where religiosity is going in the future. I think that's a topic I've been chewing on for a few years; I would love to eventually work on and produce a book out of it.
There's no question that homophobia is rampant among the world's 1.5 billion Muslims - but that doesn't negate the fact that there are huge groups of Muslims who have easily reconciled their faith and sexual orientation, like LGBT people in other faith communities.
Religion is never going to go away, and anyone who thinks it will doesn't understand what religion is. It is a language to describe the experience of human nature, so for as long as people struggle to describe what it means to be alive, it will be a ready-made language to express those feelings.
My biography of Jesus is probably the first popular biography that does not use the New Testament as its primary source material.
'Zeal' is essentially a compromising devotion to God, a commitment to cleansing the Holy Land of all foreign and pagan presences and to re-establish the kingdom of David as God had intended.
