Quotes About Religion

I'm not religious. But I grew up religious in the Bible Belt.

Common sense is no match for the voice of God.

One man's faith is another man's delusion. . . .

But perhaps the greatest attraction of Mormonism was the promise that each follower would be granted an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God. Joseph taught and encouraged his adherents to receive personal communiqués straight from the Lord. Divine revelation formed the bedrock of the religion.

The religious literature handed out by the earnest young missionaries in Temple Square makes no mention of the fact that Joseph Smith--still the religion's focal personage-- married at least thirty-three women and probably as many as forty-eight. Nor does it mention that the youngest of these wives was just fourteen years old when Joseph explained to her that God had commanded that she marry him or face eternal damnation.

I [Lorna Craig] would say that teaching a girl that her salvation depends on her having sexual relations with a married man is inherently destructive. Such relationships, Craig argues bitterly, should be considered a crime, not a religion.

that's a real big part of what holds this religion together: it's not having to make those critical decisions that many of us have to make, and be responsible for your decisions.

On the morning of the July 24, Pioneer Day, Dan got up, prayed, and felt prompted by the Lord to saw the barrel and stock off a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun that he had been storing at his mother's house.

I have to admit, the terrorists were following their prophet," Dan says. "They were willing to do essentially what I did. I see the parallel. But the difference between those guys and me is, they were following a false prophet, and I'm not. "I believe I'm a good person," Dan insists. "I've never done anything intentionally wrong. I never have.

The LDS Church has annual revenues estimated at more than $6 billion, and

will be thoroughly cleansed of Satan's minions—apostates

Between 1840 and 1844 God instructed the prophet to marry some forty women.

Those who would assail The Book of Mormon should bear in mind that its veracity is no more dubious than the veracity of the Bible, say, or the Qur'an, or the sacred texts of most other religions.

Faith is the very antithesis of reason

As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane—as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout—there may be no more potent force than religion.

Organized religion is hate masquerading as love.

Fundamentalists call defrauding the government "bleeding the beast" and regard it as a virtuous act.

There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane—as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout—there may be no more potent

Emma harangued Joseph so relentlessly about his philandering that the original intent of the revelation canonized as Section 132 seems to have been simply to persuade Emma to shut up and accept his plural wives—while at the same time compelling her to refrain from indulging in any extracurricular sex herself.

Fifty-four-year-old Tom Green is a fat, bearded man with a receding hairline, thirty-two children, and five wives

You have to remember what a comfort religion is. It provides all the answers. It makes life simple. Nothing makes you feel better than doing what the prophet commands you to do… If you want to know the truth, I think people within the religion are probably happier, on the whole, than people on the outside. But some things in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.

As an obedient Saint, he had already pledged not to drink, smoke, take illegal drugs, ingest caffeine, masturbate, or engage in premarital sex.

In the morning he called together five trusted Mormon leaders and, "with broken spirit," informed them that God had revealed to him the necessity of relinquishing "the practice of that principle for which the brethren had been willing to lay down their lives." To the shock and utter horror of the other men in the room, President Woodruff explained that "it was the will of the Lord" that the church stop sanctioning the doctrine of plural marriage.

But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions.