Quotes from Raymond Khoury

Studies have shown that convincing religious agents (have) to have just the right level of outlandishness. Also, the manifestation need(s) to have an emotional resonance in order for belief to set in. Religions use elaborate rituals to stir up people's emotions....

beneath it all, religion has always been the fuel that keeps the furnaces of intolerance and hatred burning. And it holds us back from better things, but mostly from coming to terms with the truth about who we've become, from embracing everything science has taught us and continues to teach us, from forcing us to make ourselves accountable for our own actions.

And that was the ultimate sting of democracy, you see: the insane idea that one man's ignorance was just as worthy as another man's knowledge. The ludicrous idea that the vote of the uniformed is just as valid as that of the educated.

The problem with religion right now. It hasn't evolved. And instead of being open and looking for ways to be relevant in today's world, it's gone all defensive and protective and it's regressed into lowest-common-denominator sound bites - and fundamentalism.

What people don't understand they just push away to the far corners of their minds and eventually it fades away and gets forgotten. 'Cause it's safer that way.

I curse you, Philippe le Bel, and your buffoon pope, and I call on God Almighty to have you both join me before His seat within the year, to suffer His judgment, and burn forever in the furnaces of hell…

Shallow as it sounded, the relative of a TV newscaster was directly proportional to how much attention guys paid to the screen--especially if the news in question didn't concern armed conflict, a sports result, or a celebrity meltdown.

There are only two surefire ways to get people to do what you want them to do. You either put on an iron glove and make them do it. Or you tell them God wants them to do it.

At the time, any science, as it was then called, was thought to be a challenge to the authority of the Church; a science that promised spiritual purification was a direct threat to the Church.

Religion in (the US) is so focused on fighting science and these compelling atheist voices that your preachers have lost track of what religion is really about. In... - the Eastern Church - and in Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, religion isn't there to offer theories or explanation. We accept that the divine is unknowable.....for a lot of rational people..., it's become a choice. Fact or faith. Science or religion....You shouldn't have to choose.

We'll elect any bumbling fool, any champion of mediocrity to the highest office in the land as long as they have God as their running mate.

Yelling "God is on our side" is "very effective at rallying the masses. And at winning elections....

the thing that "makes us human. We have minds. We make our own choices and live by them. We shape our own lives with how we behave towards others.

We feel (God's) presence every time we make a choice. It's something that's inside us.

Social justice is about freeing people from the clutches of witch doctors and superstition....

Over a billion people out there, worshipping these writings, accepting every word as God's own wisdom, slaughtering each other over them, and all of it without having the vaguest notion of where these scriptures really come from.

The only reason - the only need - to believe in God is to try and explain where this all came from....Where we came from. Where we're headed. But it doesn't work. If there was a creator, a designed who created all this, well then there had to be a creator to create that creator, right? And one to create him. And so on.

you can't reconcile religion with modern life, with all the knowledge we have, with science....

People don't take kindly to having others mess around with their beliefs....

History's shown us time and again, that mixing religion and politics only brings destruction.

Hope isn't real by definition, is it? It's just a state of mind....

racing certainty

And it holds us back from better things, but mostly from coming to terms with the truth about who we've become, from embracing everything science has taught us and continues to teach us, from forcing us to make ourselves accountable for our own actions.

The thing about miracles is... if you have faith, you don't need them, and if you're a doubter, well then no miracle is ever enough. This is from the book The Last Templar.