Quotes About Religion

So, monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order.

I am aware that many people might be upset by my equating religion with fake news, but that's exactly the point. When a thousand people believe some made-up story for one month, that's fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years, that's a religion, and we are admonished not to call it "fake news" in order not to hurt the feelings of the faithful (or incur their wrath).

Biologists invent the contraceptive pill – and the Pope doesn't know what to do about it. Computer scientists develop the Internet – and rabbis argue whether orthodox Jews should be allowed to surf it. Feminist thinkers call upon women to take possession of their bodies – and learned muftis debate how to confront such incendiary ideas.

Moreover, most faiths turned death into the main source of meaning in life. Try to imagine Islam, Christianity or the ancient Egyptian religion in a world without death. These creeds taught people that they must come to terms with death and pin their hopes on the afterlife, rather than seek to overcome death and live forever here on earth.

Religion can thus be defined as a system of human laws that is founded on a belief in superhuman laws.

Siria cu frica de Dumnezeu este un luc mult mai violent decat Olanda laica.

There were pacifists in the past, such as the early Christians, but in the rare cases that they gained power, they tended to forget about their requirement to 'turn the other cheek'.)

Christians and Muslims who could not agree on religious beliefs could nevertheless agree on a monetary belief, because whereas religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that other people believe in something. For

boats, oil lamps, bows and arrows and needles (essential for sewing warm clothing). The first objects that can reliably be called art date from this era (see the Stadel lion-man), as does the first clear evidence for religion, commerce and social stratification.

In fact, monotheism, as it has played out in history, is a kaleidoscope of monotheist, dualist, polytheist and animist legacies, jumbling together under a single divine umbrella. The average Christian believes in the monotheist God, but also in the dualist Devil, in polytheist saints, and in animist ghosts.

Many religions have also made extensive use of books, yet that doesn't mean reading books is a religious practice.

los algoritmos pueden servir para la circulación de vehículos y la cura de enfermedades, pero cuando se trate de resolver problemas sociales, tendremos que seguir confiando en políticos y sacerdotes.

A verdadeira especialidade dos sacerdotes e dos gurus nunca foi provocar a chuva, curar, fazer profecias ou magia. A sua especialidade foi sempre a interpretação. Um sacerdote não é alguém que sabe fazer uma dança da chuva para pôr fim à seca. Um sacerdote é alguém que sabe justificar por que motivo a dança da chuva não resultou, e por que motivo devemos continuar a acreditar no nosso deus apesar de ele parecer ignorar as nossas orações.

We do not trust the stranger, or the next-door neighbor-- we trust the coin they hold. If they run out of coins, we run out of trust. As money brings down the dams of community, religion and state, the world is in danger of becoming one big and rather heartless marketplace.

Gnostics and Manichaeans argued that the good god created the spirit and the soul, whereas matter and bodies are the creation of the evil god.

Yet in practice, science and religion are like a husband and wife who after 500 years of marriage counselling still don't know each other. He still dreams about Cinderella and she keeps pining for Prince Charming, while they argue about whose turn it is to take out the rubbish.

Los monoteístas han tendido a ser mucho más fanáticos y misioneros que los politeístas. Una religión que reconoce la legitimidad de otras creencias implica o bien que su dios no es el poder supremo del universo, o bien que ha recibido de Dios solo parte de la verdad universal.

Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people's collective imagination. Churches are rooted in common religious myths.

St Paul and St Augustine knew perfectly well that if you asked people about it, most of them would prefer to have sex than pray to God.

Como você faz as pessoas acreditarem em uma ordem imaginada como o cristianismo, a democracia ou o capitalismo? Primeiro, você nunca admite que a ordem é imaginada. Você sempre insiste que a ordem que sustenta a sociedade é uma realidade objetiva criada pelos grandes deuses ou pelas leis da natureza.

Until the eighteenth century, religions considered death and its aftermath central to the meaning of life.

La Iglesia católica ha sobrevivido durante siglos, no por transmitir un «gen del celibato» de un Papa al siguiente, sino por transmitir los relatos del Nuevo Testamento y de la Ley canónica católica.

Daca vrei sa-i determini pe oameni sa creada in enitati imaginare precum zeii si natiunile, ar trebui sa-i faci sa sacrifice ceva de pret.

What's undeniable is that monotheists have a hard time dealing with the Problem of Evil.