Quotes About Faith

one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.

Once again, I am sorry to take a sledgehammer to so small and fragile a nut, but I have to do so because more than 40 per cent of the American people believe literally in the story of Noah's Ark.

If you don't understand how something works, never mind: just give up and say God did it.

But if science cannot answer some ultimate question, what makes anybody think that religion can?

I am inclined to follow Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: 'When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.

And some scientists and other intellectuals are convinced—too eagerly in my view—that the question of God's existence belongs in the forever inaccessible PAP category. From this, as we shall see, they often make the illogical deduction that the hypothesis of God's existence, and the hypothesis of his non-existence, have exactly equal probability of being right.

Many religious people find it hard to imagine how, without religion, one can be good, or would even want to be good.

It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven. What a weapon! Religious faith deserves a chapter to itself in the annals of war technology, on an even footing with the longbow, the warhorse, the tank, and the hydrogen bomb.

the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold "beliefs" of any kind.

suppose the god who confronts you when you die turns out to be Baal, and suppose Baal is just as jealous as his old rival Yahweh was said to be. Mightn't Pascal have been better off wagering on no god at all rather than on the wrong god?

the only good reason to believe that something exists is if there is real evidence that it does.

Predators seem beautifully 'designed' to catch prey animals, while the prey animals seem equally beautifully 'designed' to escape them. Whose side is God on?66

Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.

To hell with you, Buddy. No policeman wants to protect a goddamned atheist. I hope somebody bloodies you up good.

The whole point of religious faith, its strength and chief glory, is that it does not depend on rational justification. The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices. But ask a religious person to justify their faith and you infringe 'religious liberty'.

A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents.

Pascal's Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he'd see through the deception.

We can give up belief in God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage.

Faith is powerful enough to immunise people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunises them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven. What a weapon! Religious faith deserves a chapter to itself in the annals of war technology, on an even footing with the longbow, the warhorse, the tank, and the hydrogen bomb.

The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices. But ask a religious person to justify their faith and you infringe 'religious liberty'.

There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents. Seize every opportunity to ram it home.

If you have Mozart to listen to, why would you need God?

Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition.

Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not?—because you're not!