Quotes About Religion

I am also atheist or agnostic (I don't even know the difference). I've never been to church and prefer to think for myself.

Saying spirituality cannot exist without religion is like saying hamburgers cannot exist without McDonald's.

So now that the pretense of neutrality has been more or less abandoned, and is on its way to being forgotten, what is the substance of the perspective (or ideology or, perhaps, religion) that is now fully exposed to view—and not merely to the view of its critics? And what shall we call it? In the book you are now reading, Steven Smith sets for himself the task of describing and analyzing it, and he gives it a name: paganism.

People don't change to suit their god; they change their god to suit them.

All those bickering worshippers, each one convinced their version is the right one. Imagine getting prayers from ten million believers, not one of them believing the same thing as the one kneeling beside him or her. Imagine all those Holy Books, not one of them agreeing on anything, yet all of them purporting to be the word of that one god. Imagine two armies annihilating each other, both in that god's name. Who wouldn't be driven mad by that?

The existance of many gods conveys true complexity of mortal life. Conversely, the assertion of but one god leads to a denial of complexity, and encourages the need to maek the world simple. Not the fault of the god, but a crime commited by its believers.

The gentler and kinder the god, the more harsh and cruel its worshippers, for they hold to their conviction with taut certainty, febrile in its extremity, and so cannot abide dissenters. They will kill, they will torture, in that god's name. And see in themselves no conflict, no matter how bloodstained their hands.

That is all faith is, you know. Pity for our souls.

I no longer believe that the Bible is the literal and infallible word of God. And I don't believe in God as a figure in the sky listening to your prayers, things like that.

To be slapped with a shoe is a dirty insult in the Muslim world.

Anybody looking at the history even of the 20th century would not single out Islam as the bloodthirsty religion; it was Christian/Nazi/Communist Europe and Buddhist/Taoist/Hindu/atheist Asia that set records for mass slaughter.

Far too many candidates wear their faith on their sleeve.

I've always felt like there are certain politicians that wear their religion on their sleeve in a way that you almost feel is disingenuous. I think that your faith has to be first personal. I struggle with those people that preach something and go back behind closed doors and live differently.

Politicians in Canada should not put their religion on their sleeve.

Someone once told me that religion is like a knife: You can stab someone with it, or you can slice bread with it.

Yet for my part, deeply as I am moved by the religious architecture of the Middle Ages, I cannot honestly say that I ever felt the slightest emotion in any modern Gothic church.

I'm obviously slightly ill, because there is a burning desire to be perfect in me. It's probably the Catholic, or the ex-Catholic in me.

We do not let slip from our understanding that America was founded on a bonding of many people, from many places and of various color and religion.

BJP's agenda was all wrong. They claimed that India was shining. Is it a utensil which will shine when rubbed? They fooled the people by these slogans and tried to divide them on the lines of religion.

Everyone who has ever asked for asylum in Slovakia was granted asylum if that person met the conditions. There was never any discrimination based on religion.

Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places for believing practices. Politics has once again become religious.

A man has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification.

The actual number of atheists is quite small outside of Europe and Manhattan.

I believe that what we are fighting here is not just a small group of people who have hijacked a religion, but it is a civilization bent on destroying ours.