Quotes About Religion

One thing my experience has showed me is that spiritually alive people tend to be insatiably curious about the Divine Presence, refuse to settle for cliché-heavy religion, and feel little obligation to believe something because they are told they must.

Susan admitted the churches she had grown up in were heavy on hell and damnation and light on grace. They claimed to be "saved by grace" but then carefully outlined a very specific set of beliefs one had to accept in order to be a Christian. They had emphasized law over love. Nearly every sermon she heard growing up had warned of God's wrath. She'd been taught to fear God rather than be awed by his grace.

it seems to me that the merit of any belief can be judged by the lengths people go to defend it. Poor, incomprehensible beliefs demand rigorous support. Defying reason and experience, they require the muscle of state and religion to maintain. Conversely, when a belief is so observably and obviously true, when it resonates with our experience, when it transcends cultures and eras, it requires no defense.

It's much simpler to wear the right clothes, eat the right food, and wear the right hairstyle than it is to love mercy and do justice. No wonder so many people have reduced religion to these simple, attainable standards.

I believe that in my generation, the belief in a platonic mathematics has often been a substitute religion for people who have abandoned or even rejected traditional religions. Where can certainty be found in a chaotic universe that often seems meaningless? Mathematics has often been claimed to be the sole source of absolute certainty.

thought that was the whole idea of the German Reformation. To abolish priestly intercession.

Religion long ago modified the character of ethical discussion by undermining the original egalitarianism.

give me faith not religion...

A broad Protestant church, the Church of England was

more in Northern Ireland. The church places particular emphasis on religious education as well as devotion, though

I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality.' [Interview, The New Yorker, Dec. 26, 2005]

I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality.' [ Interview, The New Yorker, Dec. 26, 2005 ]

Oenone had found the chapel by accident, and was not certain what kept drawing her back to it. She was not a Christian. Few people were anymore, except in Africa, and on certain islands of the outermost west. All she knew of Christians was that they worhsipped a god nailed to a cross, and what on earth was the use of a god who went around letting himself get nailed to things?

If only Myrtle would pay attention to the Boy's Own Journal, Blackwood's Magazine, etc., she would know that these creatures were Threls, who come from a worldlet called Threlfall on the far side of the asteroid belt. This Threlfall is a cheerless, chilly spot, and the whole history and religion of the Threls has been concerened with their quest to knit a nice woolly coverlet for it.

Religious man was born to be saved, psychological man is born to be pleased.

Culture and sacred order are inseparable... No culture has ever preserved itself where there is not a registration of sacred order.

The radio was playing "Easter Parade" and I thought, But this is Jewish genius on a par with the Ten Commandments. God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and then He gave to Irving Berlin "Easter Parade" and "White Christmas."… Easter he turns into a fashion show and Christmas into a holiday about snow.

Who touches money touches dirt; and the less religion has to do with it, the better.

If ever a monk got to heaven by monkery," says Luther, "I ought to have gotten there.

More Christian blood has been shed by Christians than by heathens and Mohammedans.

For most people, whether religious or not, spirituality involves values and a principled lifestyle both of which are supported by specific spiritual practices including prayer or meditation.

We made up our own religions and pretended they came from outside us.

Religion in art was a subtle business, best handled indirectly.

Some 110,000 witch trials occurred at this time in Europe, roughly half of them ending in conviction and execution