Quotes About Religion

Nothing that a Christian and a Muslim can say to each other will render their beliefs mutually vulnerable to discourse, because the very tenets of their faith have immunized them against the power of conversation.

It is therefore in the very nature of faith to serve as an impediment to further inquiry.

Some say while religious fundamentalists betray reason. Moderates betray faith and reason equally. -Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion(Documentary)

secularism is simply a commitment to keeping religion out of politics and public policy. Your religion is your business, and my religion, or lack of one, is mine. A willingness to build a wall of separation between church and state is what defines secularism—but, as you point out, behind that wall one may be a full-blown religious fanatic, so long as one doesn't try to impose the fruits of one's fanaticism on others.

religion is the one area of our discourse

According to a recent poll, 36 percent of British Muslims (ages sixteen to twenty-four) think apostates should be put to death for their unbelief.60 Are these people "morally motivated," in Haidt's sense, or just morally confused? And

The problem with religion is that it blends this truth so thoroughly with the venom of unreason.

When was the last time that someone was criticized for not respecting another person's unfounded beliefs about physics or history? The same rules should apply to ethical, spiritual, and religious beliefs as well.

The view that no text speaks for itself, and our relationship to scripture being about spirituality more than legalese, do not require one to be a believer in God to concede the point.

How many hours of human labor will be devoured today, by an imaginary God?

It is time we acknowledged that no real foundation exists within the canons of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any of our other faiths for religious tolerance and religious diversity.

ideas which divide one group of human beings from another, only to unite them in slaughter, generally have their roots in religion.

There is no question that many religious disciplines can produce interesting experiences in suitable minds. It should be clear, however, that engaging a faith-based (and probably delusional) practice, whatever its effects, isn't the same as investigating the nature of one's mind absent any doctrinal assumptions.

With each passing year, do our religious beliefs conserve more and more of the data of human experience? If religion addresses a genuine sphere of understanding and human necessity, then it should be susceptible to progress; its doctrines should become more useful, rather than less. Progress in religion, as in other fields, would have to be a matter of present inquiry, not the mere reiteration of past doctrine. Whatever

Clearly, the chief enemy of open conversation is dogmatism in all its forms. Dogmatism is a well-recognized obstacle to scientific reasoning, and yet, because scientists have been reluctant even to imagine that they might have something prescriptive to say about values, dogmatism is still granted remarkable scope on questions of both truth and goodness under the banner of religion

If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised to, it will be a matter of having dispensed with the dogma of faith. If our tribalism is ever to give way to an extended moral identity, our religious beliefs can no longer be sheltered from the tides of genuine inquiry and genuine criticism. It is time we realized that to presume knowledge where one has only pious hope is a species of evil.

Faith-based religion must suffer the same slide into obsolescence

Spirituality must be distinguished from religion—because people of every faith, and of none, have had the same sorts of spiritual experiences. While these states of mind are usually interpreted through the lens of one or another religious doctrine, we know that this is a mistake.

We live in an age where... Christian bashing is a popular indoor sport; and films mocking Jesus Christ are considered avant-garde.

Dear God, I understand that if I fail to believe in you, I'll burn in hell for eternity. Thanks for being such a good sport about it.

Like many men addicted to sports, Clive Sr. was also a religious man.

Religion is man-made to assist in controlling the weak minded individuals because during times of atrocity and despair they feel strength in numbers.

Religion brings to man an inner strength, spiritual light, and ineffable peace.

I derived my strength from daily mass and communion.