KING: You mentioned being Christian, and...
BONO: Trying to be.
KING: ... trying to be. Are you -- do you like organized religion? Are you a Catholic? Do you go to mass?
BONO: Who in Ireland could have too much respect for organized religion? We've seen it tear our country in two. My mother was a Protestant. My father was a Catholic. And I learned that religion is often the enemy of God, actually.
And religion is this sort of -- religion is the artifice, you know, the building, after God has left it sometimes, like Elvis has left the building. You hold onto religion, you know, rules, regulations, traditions. I think what God is interested in is people's hearts, and that's hard enough.
KING: So, especially in Ireland, you've seen it fail.
BONO: Yes, yes. And now, we're watching it around the world. We're watching what religion can do. And you know, I think it's anathema, and see -- religion takes ideas. Religion often reduces the size of God. God is so big. It's a gigantic concept in God. The idea that God might love us and be interested in us is kind of huge and gigantic, but we turn it, because we're small-minded, into this tiny, petty, often greedy version of God, that is religion.
KING: And so, we raise money in his name and go to war in his name.
BONO: Yes.
KING: If there is a God, he must be angry at a lot of this.
BONO: I think God is very angry at the moment, and I think there is -- I think it's shocking what is going on in the world. And I think it is an extraordinary moment.
Right now, I can tell you this. Our age will be remembered. This moment in time will be remembered for three things: the war against terror, sure; the Internet, probably; and how we let an entire continent, Africa, burst into flames and stood around with water in cans. This is not acceptable. It is not acceptable to let people die because they can't get the drugs that you and I take for granted. That means -- you have to ask very hard questions of ourselves if we're doing that.
KING: Why did we? For example, we would -- that wouldn't have happened in Europe. We wouldn't have let it happen in Europe.
BONO: Correct.
KING: OK. So, is it racial?
BONO: I think there's an element that people have written off in Africa.
KING: They're black.
BONO: And it's not even that they're black. I think deep down, if we really believe in equality, we would go to side of our brothers and sisters in Africa. What I would say is we don't really believe in equality. And -- I mean, equality is evolving, you know.
The idea that black people could vote here in the United States is relatively new, but women -- you know, it's like -- equality is like a pain in the ass if you think about it. It's like, you know, you think of these Jewish sheep herders walking in, in front of pharaohs, you know, with on their shoes, and the pharaoh is going, "You think you're equal to me?" And he looks in the book, and he goes, "Yes, that's what it says. All of us are created equal in God's image. That's what it says here." And it's like you're mad, you're out of your mind.
Well, it's true, and it's true, and we accept that now between our own borders. We accept that women and Jews and blacks and Irish are equal and have equal opportunities, but we don't really believe that for the rest of the world, because if we do, we would not be letting two-and-a-half million Africans die next year.
KING: There's no reason anyone in the world should be hungry, right?
BONO: Right.
KING: The means are there to...
BONO: That's right.
KING: ... produce it and deliver it.
BONO: That's right.
mistake anyone could make. 
