Quotes About Religion

It is not white nationalism to recognize limiting principles on liberal universalism, and a justifiable role for particularity - ethnic, cultural, religious - in many political arrangements.

Ireland was, of old, called the Isle of Saints because of the great number of holy ones of both sexes who flourished there in former ages or who, coming thence, propagated the faith amongst other nations.

To us, basing stories on christianity is the same as basing stories on Roman mythology, Native American folklore, or unsubstantiated government conspiracies.

55 And it is the religion of capitalism, the maniacal quest for wealth at the expense of others, that turns human beings into beasts of prey.

Zen is a journey of exploration and a way of living that, in and of itself, does not belong to any one religion or tradition. It is about experiencing life in the here and now and about removing the dualistic distinctions between I and you between subject and objective, between our spiritual and our ordinary, everyday activities.

Alors que les hommes généralement se contentent de croire, les philosophes veulent savoir ; mais, pour savoir, il faut juger, critiquer, mesurer, exclure, imaginer, bref effectuer un travail de l'esprit dont les religions et les idéologies permettent l'économie.

La religion est, aux yeux de Lucrèce, une superstition qui plonge les hommes dans l'angoisse et le désespoir. La philosophie, elle, a une fonction libératrice.

Qu'est-ce qu'une religion, en effet, sinon une secte qui a réussi ? Inversement, une secte est une religion qui a raté. Originellement, le bouddhisme est une secte du brahmanisme et le christianisme est une secte du judaïsme – leur triomphe final en a fait des religions.

Spinoza - la fonction de l'État est de garantir aux individus la liberté de leurs cultes et de leurs croyances sans en privilégier aucun ni aucune parmi eux.

Our holy prelates [say that God's Word] causeth insurrection and teacheth the people to disobey...and moveth them to rise against their princes, and to make all common, and to make havoc of other men's goods. William Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christian Man

God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was quite the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization.

If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.

Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.

Nothing proves the man-made character of religion as obviously as the sick mind that designed hell.

Your least favorite virtue, or nominee for the most overrated one? Faith. Closely followed—in view of the overall shortage of time—by patience.

The gods that we've made are exactly the gods you'd expect to be made by a species that's about half a chromosome away from being chimpanzee.

The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.

Past and present religious atrocities have occured not because we are evil, but because it is a fact of nature that the human species is, biologically, only partly rational. Evolution has meant that our prefrontal lobes are too small, our adrenal glands are too big, and our reproductive organs apparently designed by committee; a recipe which, alone or in combination, is very certain to lead to some unhappiness and disorder.

Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things…one of the beginnings of the human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority, its indispensable

It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind.

The forces of piety have always and everywhere been the sworn enemy of the open mind and the open book.

Religion invents a problem where none exists by describing the wicked as also made in the image of god and the sexually nonconformist as existing in a state of incurable mortal sin that can incidentally cause floods and earthquakes.

We know of no spectacle more ridiculous—or more contemptible—than that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth.

the religion which treats its flock as a credulous plaything offers one of the cruelest spectacles that can be imagined: a human being in fear and doubt who is openly exploited to believe in the impossible