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Quotations about religion

Carl SaganNational boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.

 - Carl Sagan

Tags:   borders  earth  nations  religion  

Blaise PascalMen never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

 - Blaise Pascal

Tags:   evil  religion  

Bertrand RussellMy whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.

 - Bertrand Russell

Tags:   duty  religion  reward  

John LennonJesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.

 - John Lennon

Tags:   Christianity  Jesus  religion  

Ralph Waldo EmersonThe Religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, that it legislates, tyrannizes over a village of God's empires but is not the immutable universal law. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion and making way for truth.

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tags:   atheism  God  religion  skepticism  truth  

Mark TwainI have no special regard for Satan; but, I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English, it is un-American; it is French.

 - Mark Twain

Tags:   religion  Satan  

Stephen KingAs a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion? - Stephen King

 - Stephen King

Tags:   killing  people  politics  religion  

Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car.

 - Garrison Keillor

Tags:   Christian  church  religion  

George CarlinReligion has convinced people that there's an invisible man ... living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.

 - George Carlin

Tags:   atheism  God  hell  religion  

Douglas AdamsThe invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!

 - Douglas Adams

Tags:   atheism  ideas  religion  science  

Aldous HuxleyIt is man's intelligence that makes him so often behave more stupidly than the beasts. Man is impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic.

Thus, no animal is clever enough, when there is a drought, to imagine that the rain is being withheld by evil spirits, or as punishment for its transgressions. Therefore you never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. No horse, for example would kill one of its foals to make the wind change direction. Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, intelligent enough.

 - Aldous Huxley

Tags:   animals  intelligence  magic  religion  superstition  

Aldous HuxleyJehovah, Allah, the Trinity, Jesus, Buddha, are names for a great variety of human virtues, human mystical experiences human remorses, human compensatory fantasies, human terrors, human cruelties. If all men were alike, all the world would worship the same God.

 - Aldous Huxley

Tags:   God  religion  virtue  

James BaldwinPerhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.

 - James Baldwin

Tags:   death  life  religion  trouble  

James MadisonReligion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

 - James Madison

Tags:   government  religion  

James MadisonWhat influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries.

 - James Madison

Tags:   power  religion  society  tyranny  

EpicurusIs God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

 - Epicurus

Tags:   atheism  evil  God  religion  

Mahatma GandhiI came to the conclusion long ago that all religions were true and that also that all had some error in them, and while I hold by my own religion, I should hold other religions as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we were Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu; but our innermost prayer should be that a Hindu should become a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, and a Christian a better Christian.

 - Mahatma Gandhi

Tags:   prayer  religion  

Richard FeynmanNo government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literary or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.

 - Richard Feynman

Tags:   art  freedom  government  history  philosophy  religion  science  

Thomas PaineRevelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it. It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing.

 - Thomas Paine

Tags:   prophet  religion  revelation  

Abdul KalamFor great men, religion is a way of making friends; small people make religion a fighting tool.

 - A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Tags:   fighting  friendship  religion  

Arthur SchopenhauerFaith is like love, it cannot be forced. Therefore it is a dangerous operation if an attempt be made to introduce or bind it by state regulations; for, as the attempt to force love begets hatred, so also to compel religious belief produces rank unbelief.

 - Arthur Schopenhauer

Tags:   faith  force  love  regulation  religion  

Benazir BhuttoEvery dictator uses religion as a prop to keep himself in power.

 - Benazir Bhutto

Tags:   dictators  power  religion  

Charles DarwinThus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be ever lastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.

 - Charles Darwin

Tags:   Christianity  punishment  religion  

David HumeAccurate and just reasoning is the only Catholic remedy, fitted for all persons and all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom.

 - David Hume

Tags:   reasoning  religion  superstition  

David HumeThat the corruption of the best thing produces the worst, is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.

 - David Hume

Tags:   corruption  religion  superstition  

Michel de MontaigneMan is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

 - Michel de Montaigne

Tags:   humans  religion  

Voltaire ArouetVirtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force. Under coercion there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no religion. Make a slave of me, and I shall be no better for it. Even the sovereign has no right to use coercion to lead men to religion, which by its nature supposes choice and liberty. My thought is no more subject to authority than is sickness or health.

 - Voltaire Arouet

Tags:   choice  coercion  liberty  religion  

John F. KennedyI believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

 - John F. Kennedy

Tags:   America  church  government  religion  state  

James BaldwinIf the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.

 - James Baldwin

Tags:   freedom  God  love  religion  

Samuel Taylor ColeridgeHe who begins by loving Christianity better than truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end by loving himself better than all.

 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Tags:   religion  truth  

Mark Twain[the bible] . . . is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.

 - Mark Twain

Tags:   Christianity  religion  

Mark TwainIn religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination.

 - Mark Twain

Tags:   politics  religion