Quotes About Religion

Religious believers of the world, you are free to continue to debate the simple, narrow question that divides you from atheists, but you have no right, in so doing, to treat the Humanists of the world with contempt. You owe them a deep debt of gratitude, for not only have they shed much light on a naturally dark world but they have very probably helped civilize your own specific religion.

If the Old Testament were a reliable guide in the matter of capital punishment, half the people in the United States would have to be killed tomorrow.

I do not understand those who take little or no interest in the subject of religion. If religion embodies a truth, it is certainly the most important truth of human existence. If it is largely error, then it is one of monumentally tragic proportions—and should be vigorously opposed.

without fear, we'd have no need for religion or war.

If you worship a God who is out to get you, you will never be free … free to cuss and spit, free to move to joyous acceptance, and free to get on with your life.

A few key points were well established. The Taliban imposed two religious taxes, ushr and zakat, on the opium economy. The taxes hit farmers, truckers, morphine makers, and smugglers. The tax rates were 10 and 20 percent, prescribed by the Koran, and so not subject to change. Therefore, as opium growing boomed in the south in 2006 and 2007, it was logical to conclude that the Taliban's coffers had also swelled.

The Buddhas in Afghanistan were older even than Islam. Thousands of Muslim soldiers had crossed Afghanistan to India over the centuries, but none of them had ever felt compelled to destroy the Buddhas. "When they have spared these statues for fifteen hundred years, all these Muslims who have passed by them, how are you a different Muslim from them?" Haider asked. "Maybe they did not have the technology to destroy them," Omar speculated.

Despite the amazing diversity we're blessed with in this country, schools are still in large part segregated because of economic disparity. Sports are one of the few areas where kids are really given the opportunity to interact with those of different races and religions.

It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, it's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary...but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.

When somebody's religious identity is being challenged, things are bound to turn nasty quickly.

C.S. Lewis was right when he said, "Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst.

If you have seen your God through the lens of legalistic religion, you most likely have believed that God was warning them [Adam and Eve] that He would punsih them if they ate from the tree. Nothing could be further from the heart or intent of God. He wouldn't kill them - sin would kill them. God wasn't warning them about what He would do but about what sin would do to them.

The idea that God does His part and we have to do our part in order to experience His blessings is one of the greatest misunderstandings that affects people today. It affects how we understand the Bible. It affects how we perceive God. It affects how we live our lives.

The New Testament of grace is completely different than the one under which Israel lived in the narrative of the Old Testament Scriptures.

How is the Old Covenant like the New Covenant? It isn't!

The heart of our Creator is to bless you. Dead religion presents a freakish caricature, a pseudo-god who is reluctant to bless his creatures unless they toe the line of impeccable moral behavior and tireless service to him. But the authentic God of the Bible blessed Adam and Eve immediately [Genesis 1:27-28] - before they worshipped, before they served, before they prayed, before they displayed any kind of action at all. The first divine act toward humanity tells us so very much about Him.

ALSO BY STEVE OLSON MAPPING HUMAN HISTORY: GENES, RACE, AND OUR COMMON ORIGINS COUNT DOWN: SIX KIDS VIE FOR GLORY AT THE WORLD'S TOUGHEST MATH COMPETITION ANARCHY EVOLUTION: FAITH, SCIENCE, AND BAD RELIGION IN A WORLD WITHOUT GOD (coauthored with Greg Graffin) ERUPTION:

While Jesus transcends culture, culture does not change God's word.

To use a medical analogy, while mystics try to heal themselves (that is, to transcend sleep), conventionally religious people simply try to manage the symptoms. Near-death

Mystics from all traditions have the common aim of cultivating wakefulness, while the common aim of all mainstream religions is to offer consolation and psychological support. To use a medical analogy, while mystics try to heal themselves (that is, to transcend sleep), conventionally religious people simply try to manage the symptoms. Near-death

Where there is spirituality there is freedom, but religion is rigid. To be spiritual you have to step aside from the belief and go more into knowing, which gives you a greater freedom, including the freedom to question. Unless you question you're not going to get past the beliefs.

There is no religion There is no reality or lack of reality There is no start or finish There is no me or you There is only everything And the only thing that is that reality Is divinity itself And it is all for the love of God.

I've been hearing about how good and kind and merciful that old boy is upstairs, but I've read the Old Testament. You just take a look at all the folks that Jehovah decreed needed to burned or sacked and smited out of their homes. That old fellow is a psychopathic serial killer, you just check the facts.

17.14) "The uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people." An uncircumcised boy is to be abandoned by his parents and community.