Quotes About Religion

Again the crucial question: Is there any help to be found for the disinherited in the religion of Jesus?

THE significance of the religion of Jesus to people who stand with their backs against the wall has always seemed to me to be crucial.

This is a matter of tremendous significance, for it reveals to what extent a religion that was born of a people acquainted with persecution and suffering has become the cornerstone of a civilization and of nations whose very position in modern life has too often been secured by a ruthless use of power applied to weak and defenseless peoples.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I have heard a sermon on the meaning of religion, of Christianity, to the man who stands with his back against the wall. It is urgent that my meaning be crystal clear. The masses of men live with their backs constantly against the wall. They are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. What does our religion say to them?

The basic fact is that Christianity as it was born in the mind of this Jewish teacher and thinker appears as a technique of survival for the oppressed. That it became, through the intervening years, a religion of the powerful and the dominant, used sometimes as an instrument of oppression, must not tempt us into believing that it was thus in the mind and life of Jesus.

No student of Chinese history can say that the Chinese are incapable of religious experience, even when judged by the standards of medieval Europe or pious India.

Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.

La science et la religion ne règnent pas sur le même domaine. La première apprend, la seconde enseigne. Le doute est le moteur de l'une, l'autre a la foi pour ciment.

Bilim dünyay? anlamaya çal???r; dinler(ve felsefeler) ise genellikle insan ya?am?na bir anlam verme görevini üstlenmi?lerdir. ?ki taraf da kendi alanlar?nda kalmak ko?uluyla, din ile bilim birbirlerini ayd?nlatabilirler.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Help me. Please, help me. If you really exist, you skinny jew bastard, help me kill myself.

This was how we grew up—in a close family with a proud, strong, protective father and a loving, joyful mother. No wonder we came to feel that all our needs—from religion to friendship to entertainment—were met within the family circle. There was no felt need for outside friends; we were such good friends with each other.

The spirit of true religion breathes gentleness and affability; it gives a native, unaffected ease to the behavior; it is social, kind, cheerful; far removed from the cloudy and illiberal disposition which clouds the brow, sharpens the temper, and dejects the spirit.

Marx is only half right when he calls religion the opium of the people. It may turn a lot of people into sheep, but it turns far too many of them into tigers.

The New York Times in 1955 and Newsweek in 1957 both ran features on the religious boom on campus.

To err is human- I'm uncomfortable around gods.

Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I am doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident need my consistency.

The First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere.

The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.

In any case, Jinnah died within a year of independence, leaving his successors divided, or confused, about whether to take their cue from his independence eve call to keep religion out of politics or to build on the religious sentiment generated during the political bargaining for Pakistan.

Contrary to what Pakistani children are taught in schools, the Islamic ideology currently in vogue in Pakistan did not give birth to the country; it was born after Pakistan's creation in its present form.

The Jamaat saw its opportunity in working with the new state's elite, gradually expanding the Islamic agenda while providing the theological rationale for the elite's plans for nation building on the basis of religion.

To end its march of folly, Pakistan needs to reassess its core beliefs about a religion-based polity, reconsider the notion of permanent conflict with its larger neighbour, recreate political institutions to reflect its ethnic diversity and rebuild its economy without reliance on the largesse of others. Only then would it be able to reliably get rid of the spectre of failure or fragility and low international standing by all non-military benchmarks.

In the process of moulding a nation on the basis of Islam, Pakistan has ended up earning for itself the reputation for being home to the world's angriest Muslims.

People are slaves to the world, and as long as they live favorable and comfortable lives, they are loyal to religious principles. However, at hard times, the times of trials, true religious people are scarce.