RELIGION QUOTES III
quotations about religion
There are a whole lot of religious people in America, including the majority of Democrats. When we abandon the field of religious discourse--when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome--others will fill the vacuum. And those who do are likely to be those with the most insular views of faith, or who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.
BARACK OBAMA
Audacity of Hope
If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish -- if a little more enlightened, religion would perish.
ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL
Some Mistakes of Moses
This dull river has a deep religion of its own; so, let us trust, has the dullest human soul, though, perhaps, unconsciously.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
American Note-Books, August 7, 1842
He who leaves religion to his last day, reserves only the bran for God, while he gives the fine flour to the Devil.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
The Jew of Malta
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930
Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792
If the truth of religious doctrines is dependent on an inner experience that bears witness to the truth, what is one to make of the many people who do not have that experience?
SIGMUND FREUD
The Future of an Illusion
Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand-in-hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by the help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"Fear, the Foundation of Religion", Why I Am Not a Christian
I came to the conclusion long ago ... that all religions were true and also that all had some error in them, and whilst I hold by my own, I should hold others as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we are Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu ... But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Young India, January 19, 1928
In terms of the evolutionary process religion is such a waste of resources.
NICK HARDING
News Talk, January 25, 2016
Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
SIGMUND FREUD
New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Religion ought not to be a speculative, metaphysical system of belief; but a compendium of moral and practical duties, embracing every function of man, supporting the right use of these functions, and prohibiting the abuse of them as the will of the Deity.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays
I'm more spiritual than I am religious. I don't go to church; I go to the beach.
PAULA DEEN
Good Housekeeping, November 2009
God has no religion.
HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS
Re-statements of Christian Doctrine
Religious beliefs prepare a kind of landscape of images, an illusory milieu favorable to every hallucination and every delirium.
MICHEL FOUCAULT
Madness & Civilization
The primary aim of all religions and philosophical systems is to furnish an antidote to the certainty of death.
GEORGE BERKELEY
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
The beginning of religion, more precisely its content, is the concept of religion itself, that God is the absolute truth, the truth of all things, and subjectively that religion alone is the absolutely true knowledge.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
It's not the work or the personality of the founder of a religion that's important, but what its followers do with what they learn.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Little Country
What a man wants with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension.
MARK TWAIN
letter to Orion Clemens, March 1860