Quotes About Religion

This is something one must bear, beyond the claims of religion, not the idea of one's dying but the reality of one's death. One schools oneself in an acceptance of the terror. It is the shape that life takes toward its end. It is a form of life.

My definition of a true religion is one that does good in the world. It tries to find ways to help people be themselves. It does not try to shape people to be what we think they should be, then break spiritual or man-made laws to accomplish that. The sign of a good religion is that it helps the people grow to become more godlike, to be capable of more love and mercy---for themselves as well as for others.

It is impossible to make peace with the Roman Catholic Church. It is one of the permanent enemies of all that is decent in human spirit.

The church is not a religious club for the morally superior, but a community of sinners saved by grace.

My aunt touched my shoulder, I opened my eyes startled for a moment. She was smiling softly but I could see the tears sparkling in the corner of her eyes. "It's the same God, Frankie." I could feel the tension flow out of me. Suddenly I smiled at her. She was right: the Word meant God in no matter what language you spoke it—English, Latin or… Hebrew.

I never went to Hebrew school or to a church or synagogue afterward, but then I never gave much thought to God either. I felt confident that I would be able to deal with Him when the time came for me to have to—just as I would deal with everything else in my life, when the time came and not before.

for all those people who wanted to go on believing, but whose anger at God made it hard for them to hold on to their faith and be comforted by religion.

Is it ever acceptable to be angry at God? I would suggest that it is not only acceptable, it may be one of the hallmarks of a truly religious person. It puts honesty ahead of flattery.

One of the most important differences between Judaism and Christianity is that we were a people before we had a religion.........throughout it all, it is the participation in the community that defines us as Jews; the creeds and rituals are secondary.

I believe in the reality of God the way scientists believe in the reality of electrons. I see things happening that would not happen unless there is a God.

I believe strongly that one of the primary goals of religion is to teach people to like themselves and feel good about themselves. All my experience has taught me that people who feel good about themselves will be more generous, more forgiving of others, less defensive about their mistakes, more assessable to change, and better able to cope with misfortune and adversity.

What can we do, and what role, if any, can religion play in helping us? I would reiterate two important points: (1) The purpose of religion is not to explain God or to please God, but to help us meet some of our most basic human needs. (2) Religion helps us not by changing the facts, but by teaching us new ways of looking at those facts.

But it is a historical fact that the Jews, and no one else, gave the world the Bible. It is a historical fact that the Jews introduced to the pagan world the idea of a God who demanded righteousness......Even most of the books of the New Testament were written by Jews.

The task of religion is not to teach us to bow our heads and accept God's inscrutable will. It is to help us find the resources to live meaningfully and to go on believing, even in a world where people often don't get what they deserve.

God is a God I can believe in.

In my psychological studies," Jones explained, "I have observed that religion is not restraining in a moral see. Religion is not the same as ethics. Religion in its fanatic state may be a passion devoid of morality that will take any means to an end.

There is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south. If a man goes to the communion table, and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious.

I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place.

No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man

the country is almost ruined with pious white people: such pious politicians as we have just before elections, such pious goings on in all departments of church and state, that a fellow does not know who'll cheat him next.

Yet some striking exceptions there are among us, from the fact that the negro is naturally more impressible to religious sentiment than the white.

The gift to appreciate and the sense to feel the finer shades and relations of moral things, often seems an attribute of those whose whole life shows a careless disregard of them. Hence Moore, Byron, Goethe, often speak words more wisely descriptive of the true religious sentiment, than another man, whose whole life is governed by it. In such minds, disregard of religion is a more fearful treason,—a more deadly sin.

Religion!" said St. Clare, in a tone that made both ladies look at him. "Religion! Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? No! When I look for a religion, I must look for something above me, and not something beneath.

You ladies go to church to learn how to get along in the world, I suppose, and your piety sheds respectability on us. If I did go at all, I would go where Mammy goes; there's something to keep a fellow awake there, at least." "What! those shouting Methodists? Horrible!" said Marie. "Anything but the dead sea of your respectable churches, Marie.