Quotes About Religion

Philosopher John Gray, though himself an atheist, writes that "when atheism becomes a political project, the invariable result is an ersatz religion that can only be maintained by tyrannical means" 64—by secret police and death camps.

God cannot be rejected without putting something else in his place.

Christianity was permitted to tell Sunday school stories as object lessons to inspire morality, but it was not allowed to claim that those stories were true.

Today religion appeals almost solely to the needs of the private sphere—needs for personal meaning, social bonding, family sup-port, emotional nurturing, practical living, and so on. In this climate, almost inevitably, churches come to speak the language of psychological needs, focusing primarily on the therapeutic functions of religion. Whereas religion used to be connected to group identity and a sense of belonging, it is now almost solely a search for an authentic inner life.

South Korea now has five of the world's ten biggest churches.

More Chinese attend church each Sunday than are members of the Communist Party.

To adapt a phrase, idols have consequences.

A merely symbolic religion does not threaten the ruling regime of materialistic science.

Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa reveals the upheaval of partition through the eyes of a child, "Lame Lenny," a young Parsi girl crippled from polio. Lenny's world is her beloved and beautiful Hindu ayah and her ayah's many Muslim admirers, the cook Imam Din, and the Untouchable gardener.

At the foot of the cross, the poor, the slave, the oppressed, the young, and the weak are all equal to the rich and powerful. Christians are forbidden to show favoritism (James 2:1–9; 5:1–6).

Why I Raise My Children without God." Instantly it went viral. The author, a young mother named Deborah Mitchell, listed several reasons why she shielded her children from learning about God—most of them variations on the problem of evil. Mitchell argued that a loving God would not allow "murders, child abuse, wars, brutal beatings, torture and millions of heinous acts to be committed throughout the history of mankind." 1

B the spring of 1848, the religious climate was still unsettled and ripe for progressive new ideas. America's cities were expanding, its populations swelling with immigrants from Ireland and Europe, its factories and ports booming all of which contributed to a rising mortality rate.

Demons are real. Since I'm not religious, I think of them as metaphors for the evil desires and impulses all humans have. A religious person can think of them as separate evil beings that can possess you. Either way, I believe they exist, lurking patiently around and in us, whispering their twisted points of view, ever alert for an opportunity. The sudden chink in your armor when you're tired, frightened, or angry. The invitation you issue in that moment of vulnerability.

No one had really won. Not me. Not Hyo Jin. Not our children. Only Sun Myung Moon had gotten what he wanted all along. My children and I had slipped out of the grasp of the Unification Church, but we were destined to remain in the shadow of the Moons.

But all these were not the true religion. For the true religion is love, not fear. The strong mother cradling her child: that is love and that is truth. The girls pass this news from one, to the next, to the next. God has returned, and Her message is for us, only us.

It is a gift. Who is it to say it does not come from God.

God loves all of us," she says, "and She wants us to know that She has changed Her garment merely. She is beyond female and male, She is beyond human understanding. But She calls your attention to that which you have forgotten. Jews: look to Miriam, not Moses, for what you can learn from her. Muslims: look to Fatima, not Muhammad. Buddhists: remember Tara, the mother of liberation. Christians: pray to Mary for your salvation.

Jews: look to Miriam, not Moses ... Muslims: look to Fatimah, not Muhammad. Buddhists: remember Tara, the mother of liberation. Christians: pray to Mary for your salvation.

Marriage is only permitted between those who have little in common. One may not marry a close relative. One may not marry a person of the same sex. God, Who created the heavens and the earth, might easily have ordained that a brother and sister could marry, that two women together could produce offspring. He could have so ordered the world that those who were the closest were able to mate. And thus He might have given His creations more comfort. Why, therefore, did He not do so?

Images of God dictate who will feel worthy in society and who will feel inferior, who will be respected and who will be despised, who will get easy access to the literal, material goods of the culture and who will have to fight for those goods.

Or you could say that human society is denying a basic truth that human beings have verified from the dawn of time, and that in removing themselves from the idea of a Supreme Being, man is moving away from all that is spiritual and moral in the world, all that is spiritual and moral in himself.

There are several ways of looking at this. You could say that mankind is getting smarter, removing itself from superstition and irrationality. Or you could say that human society is denying a basic truth that human beings have verified from the dawn of time, and that in removing themselves from the idea of a Supreme Being, man is moving away from all that is spiritual and moral in the world, all that is spiritual and moral in himself.

I used to think religious people were kinder, nicer, had better characters, but I found out they're just like everybody else, just people. Some are better, some are worse. There are sincere ones . . . but also the opposite . . .

Society is impossible without inequality, inequality intolerable without a code of morality, and a code of morality unacceptable without religion.