Religion has been a constant throughout human history. Evidence of it dates from the earliest times. The religious beliefs of Australian Aboriginals have been estimated to go back 60,000 years, while evidence of worship in Botswana is even older. Religious practice is also universal, appearing in every region of the globe. To judge from recorded history and contemporary accounts, religious intolerance is equally widespread. We see it in the conflicts between the Buddhists and the Muslims in southern Thailand, among the Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, and Christians in India, between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria and in Iraq, and, until quite recently, between the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. This intolerance is all the more surprising given that all the major expressions of faith proclaim the golden rule. We can read in the Hindu Mahabharata,