Quotes About Religion

I had to get rid of any idea of hell or any idea of the afterlife. That's what held me, kept me down. So now I just have nothing but contempt for the institution of the church.

One of my major keys is actually the master keys: God.

I kinda don't do guilt. I gave it up for Lent years ago.

Every school that I have ever attended, except for kindergarten, I went to a Catholic institution.

My religious philosophy is kindness. Try to be kind. That's something worth achieving.

There are many reasons for kindness, and religion is just one of them.

I am, as far as my politics reaches, 'King and Country' - no 'Innovations in Religion and Government' say I.

I think first and foremost when you look at every other religion all over the world - its works based - you have to earn your way to the Kingdom. With Jesus, it's so different because we didn't do anything to deserve Him. He literally died for us and saved us! There's nothing else like that in the world. There is no other God like that!

The story of Ulysses and Agamemnon and Menelaus, of Jesus, of the Good Knight of Chaucer, lives in every one of us.

I was knocking on people's doors. I knocked on a white couple's door, and I told them, I says, 'Excuse me, but I've been born again.' The guy said, 'Hon, call security. There's a little black guy here talking about how he been born again. Call the police.'

Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk.

In Bengal, Hindus are known to crack jokes at the expense of their gods and goddesses and that's what I did.

Sharia law does not exist in the Koran. It was created by man.

When you read the Koran, you give up. At least the Bible is very beautiful because Jews have an extraordinary literary talent.

We have a separation of state and church. The laws of the country are not subject to the Koran.

My sister bought me the Koran in 1990. I always thought the stories in it were magical.

When I read the Koran or hear it read, the images and the poetry, the sound of the language is very inspiring.

I come from a Muslim family. The label 'Muslim' is one aspect of me, but it's not the only part of me.

Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that it's the sine qua non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, "what's the point of having religion if you can't disapprove of other people?" And sometimes we use religion just to back up these unworthy hatreds, because we're frightened too.

It's not easy to talk about transcendence, just as it's not easy to play or listen to a late Beethoven quartet You have to practice quite hard, like you do with any art form. Religion is hard work.

Newton and Descartes started to try and prove that God existed in the same way as they would try and prove something in the laboratory or with their mathematics And when you try and mix science and religion you get bad science and bad religion. The two are doing two different things. ... Science can give you a diagnosis of cancer. It can even cure your disease, but it cannot touch your grief and disappointment, nor can it help you to die well.

A lot of the arguments about religion going on at the moment spring from a rather inept understanding of religious truth Our notion changed during the early modern period when we became convinced that the only path to any kind of truth was reason. That works beautifully for science but doesn't work so well for the humanities. Religion is really an art form and a struggle to find value and meaning amid the ghastly tragedy of human life.

I say that religion isnt about believing things. Its ethical alchemy. Its about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.

Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn't necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious concept.