Quotes About Religion

Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver.

It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.

An infinite God ought to be able to protect Himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures.

Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.

Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.

We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living, hope for the dead.

Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.

Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.

With soap, baptism is a good thing.

In all ages hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns on the heads of thieves, called kings.

Theology is a superstition—Humanity a religion.

The religionist is a living fossil, embedded in that rock called faith.

Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.

Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.

Suppose it should turn out that no such person as Christ ever lived. What harm would that do justice or mercy? Wouldn't the tear of pity be as pure as now, and wouldn't justice, holding aloft her scales, from which she blows even the dust of prejudice, be as noble, as admirable as now? Is it not better to love justice and mercy than to love a name, and when you put a name above justice, above mercy, are you sure that you are benefiting your fellowmen?

The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow – Hope shining upon the tears of grief.

Religion can never reform mankind, because religion is slavery.

Superstition is the child of ignorance and fear.

Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles never did, and never will agree. They are not in the least related. They are deadly foes. What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Can there be Methodist mathematics, Catholic astronomy, Presbyterian geology, Baptist biology, or Episcopal botany?

The theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living.

As long as men did nothing except to render their fellows wretched; as long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, God maintained the strictest and most heartless neutrality. But when some honest man, some great and tender soul expressed a doubt as to the truth of the Scriptures, or prayed to the wrong God, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore his wretched soul.

The people were taught that the record was inspired, and therefore true. They were not taught that it was true, and therefore inspired.

He bade the slave ships speed from coast to coast, Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost.

Now and then some one says that the religion of his father and mother is good enough for him, and wonders why anybody should desire a better. Surely we are not bound to follow our parents in religion any more than in politics, science or art.