Dude, Clojure isn't even purely functional, nor is it meant to be. I respect Rich Hickey a lot too, but that doesn't mean he's some kind of god who blesses functional things. In reality, Haskell is much more at the forefront of functional programming than Clojure is — it actually embraces FP down to its core, purity and curried functions and all, while Clojure takes the more pragmatic stance of maintaining easy Java interop. Haskell's whole purpose is to push the boundaries of functional programming, while Clojure's purpose is to be a very useful modern Lisp that separates value and identity. Clojure is a really nice language and IMO more practical than Haskell in general, but it is not the last word on FP.