Quotes About Religion

The religious conflicts of the Reformation era were never simply and only about religion, because religion during this era as in the Middle Ages that preceded it, informed and was meant to inform every domain of life. Violence involving religion and touching other areas of life took many forms: from the Protestant destruction of Catholic religious art and objects in iconoclasm, to Catholic executions of Protestants who refused to renounce their views, to major destructive conflicts such as the French Wars of Religion and the Thirty Years' War.

In Europe, the Enlightenment of the 18th century was seen as a battle against the desire of the Church to limit intellectual freedom, a battle against the Inquisition, a battle against religious censorship. And the victory of the Enlightenment in Europe was seen as pushing religion away from the center of power. In America, at the same time, the Enlightenment meant coming to a country where people were not going to persecute you by reason of your religion. So it meant a liberation into religion. In Europe, it was liberation out of religion.

Instead of loving a God, we love each other. Instead of the religion of the sky-the religion of this world-the religion of the family-the love of husband for wife, of wife for husband-the love of all for children. So that now the real religion is: Let us live for each other; let us live for this world without regard for the past and without fear for the future. Let us use our faculties and our powers for the benefit of ourselves and others, knowing that if there be another world, the same philosophy that gives us joy here will make us happy there.

Business is religion, and religion is business. The man who does not make a business of his religion has a religious life of no force, and the man who does not make a religion of his business has a business life of no character.

From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery.

I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development. I think that religion may be some random by-product of mammalian reproduction. If that's true, would non-mammalian aliens have a religion?

I think there in a great deal to be said for religious education in the sense of teaching about religion and biblical literacy. Both those things, by the way, I suspect will prepare a child to give up religion. If you are taught comparative religion, you are more likely to realise that there are other religions than the one you have been brought up in. And if you are if you are taught to read the bible, I can think of almost nothing more calculated to turn you off religion.

When religion talks about our aspirations and our sense of morality, I do not believe that science can contradict it. However, when religion contradicts science on matters of fact, religion must yield.

Science has only two things to contribute to religion: an analysis of the evolutionary, cultural, and psychological basis for believing things that aren't true, and a scientific disproof of some of faith's claims (e.g., Adam and Eve, the Great Flood). Religion has nothing to contribute to science, and science is best off staying as far away from faith as possible. The "constructive dialogue" between science and faith is, in reality, a destructive monologue, with science making all the good points, tearing down religion in the process.

The Mosaic religion had been a Father religion; Christianity became a Son religion. The old God, the Father, took second place; Christ, the Son, stood in His stead, just as in those dark times every son had longed to do.

I think in other generations, the 50s, the 60s, people went into religion and they were really involved with religion. I found that religion doesn't answer certain unique questions people have about faith and belief.

Transcendental Meditation is not a religion, it's not against any religion, it's for human beings, no matter what color, what religion, what walk of life. If you're a human being, it will work for you. And you will be very glad you found this technique and took advantage of it.

A wise man once told me- he’s a muslim by the way- that he has more in common with a jew than he does a fanatic of his own religion. He has more in common with a rational, reasonable-minded Christian or a Buddhist or Hindu than he does with a fanatic of his own religion. In fact, he has more in common with a ration, reasonable-minded atheist than he does with a fanatic of his own religion

Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places of believing practices, but for this very reason, they seem to have been haunted by the return of a very ancient (preChristian) and very “pagan” alliance between power and religion. It is as though now that religion has ceased to be an autonomous power (the “power of religion,” people used to say), politics has once again become religious.

I think those governments who resent religion, they're afraid of religion because religion may be in their eyes, in their views be seen as a counter government or a parallel government.

I was raised in a religious home. It was unreasonable enforced religion that turned me off it. It was a joyless, unpleasant, stupid, barbaric thing when I was a child and I've never gotten over that feeling. If you're talking about religion it's one thing; I don't hold Jewish religion with any more seriousness than I would any other.

You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so called age of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burnt as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practised upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

If anybody asks what Sufism is, what kind of religion is it, the answer is that Sufism is the religion of the heart, the religion in which the thing of primary importance is to seek God in the heart of mankind.

Believing in religion is an insult to God, because God means high intelligence and what intelligence there is in religion? Let us save the God from the religion, from fables for children! God has never spoken yet; He has been remaining in silent for millions of years somewhere outside our universe!

Religion should be subject to commonsense appraisal and rational review, as openly discussible as, say, politics, art and the weather. The First Amendment, we should recall, forbids Congress both from establishing laws designating a state religion and from abridging freedom of speech. There is no reason why we should shy away from speaking freely about religion, no reason why it should be thought impolite to debate it, especially when, as so often happens, religious folk bring it up on their own and try to impose it on others.

There is no society that protects freedom of religion more than secular democracies, because in societies where one religion rules, different viewpoints will be labelled as heresy and blasphemy. Why? Because the society is built on religion - not freedom for all points of view.

Religion, or the duty we owe to our Creator, and manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and, therefore, that all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by the magistrate, unless under color of religion any man disturb the peace, the happiness, or safety of society, and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity toward each other.

Religion - religion, at best - at BEST - is like a lift in your shoe. If you need it for a while, and it makes you walk straight and feel better - fine. But you don't need it forever, or you can become permanently disabled. Religion is like a lift in the shoe, and I say just don't ask me to wear your shoes. And let's not go down and nail lifts onto the natives' feet.

The rules, religion to religion that man set forth, made me shy away from religion and have my own one on one with God and cut out the middleman.

The essence of any religion is good heart. Sometimes I call love and compassion a universal religion. This is my religion.

It's such a frustration when you see in the name of religion, in the name of God, what people are doing is something we never expected. The religion has to be Spirit-oriented, but it is only power-oriented or money-oriented. In the original scriptures, or we can say in the origin of this religion was the truth. And all these religions bloom on the same play of spirituality like beautiful flowers at different times, but people have plucked it and now they are fighting with the dead flowers.

The priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. Is this because priests instinctively know priests?

One might say that where Religion becomes artificial, it is reserved for Art to save the spirit of religion.

I studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really.

Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere.

Man seeks to learn, and man kills himself because of the loss of cohesion in his religious society; he does not kill himself because of his learning. It is certainly not the learning he acquires that disorganizes religion; but the desire for knowledge wakens because religion becomes disorganized.

A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion.

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.

In France, we have laïcité, which means that atheism is almost our state religion. But I think a very important part of Western culture is in the centuries when Christianism was dominant and was present in almost all works of art - not only liturgical works, but also literature and music. Yes, it's important to have that in our present. It doesn't mean that people have to adhere to a dogma or practice a religion, but it's part of our heritage, and you have to at least try to understand it. Otherwise you can't be a modern person.

People keep framing this as a religious freedom issue, but there's a difference between practising your religion - which everyone has the right to do - and rubbing your religion in people's faces as a triumphalist political statement, which is what's happening here.

Religion itself is without genius. There is no religious genius and no one would be permitted to distinguish between the talented and the untalented in religion.

I could be martyred for my religion. Love is my religion and I could die for that. I could die for you.

As to the Christian religion, besides the strong evidence which we have for it, there is a balance in its favor from the number of great men who have been convinced of its truth after a serious consideration of the question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to examine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the world, who certainly had no bias on the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel, and came to be a very firm believer.

In church I was told that if I so much as smoked a cigarette or tasted alcohol, I’d be damned in hell for all eternity... it didn’t take long for me to start thinking that sounded all wrong... I didn’t cotton to the idea that your religion should be flaunted to other people. Your religion is for you, and is best kept close to your heart.

It is significant that the socialist mentality is usually also an atheistic mentality, where atheism is understood not so much as the disbelief in God as the hatred of God˜an attitude as precarious logically as it has been destructive in practice. There is an important sense in which religion as traditionally understood reconciles humanity to imperfection and to failure. Since the socialist sets out to abolish failure, traditional religion is worse than _de trop_: it is an impediment to perfection.

One key and defining attribute of God that does not appear in any other world religion or system is the biblical use of the term "Father." Over 70 times in the New Testament alone, God is described as "Father" to His children. No major world religion describes the relationship between its creator and its adherents in terms of a father.

Yoga has brought me to the part of religion I really like - the positive sides of religion, the parts we all share, rather than the things that create separation.

Religion grows with the intelligence of man, but all religions of the past and probably all of the future will sooner or later become petrified forms instead of living helps to mankind. Until that time comes, however, if religion of any name or nature makes man more happy, comfortable, and able to live peaceably with his brothers, it is good.

I believe in the religion of Love, whatever direction its caravans may take, for Love is my religion and my faith.

I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.

Islam is a violent, I was going to say religion, but it's not a religion. It's a political system. It's a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination. That is the ultimate aim.

The American journalist Barbara Ehrenreich has written about this in her book Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World (2009) . She talks about the happiness industry, the rise of medication to make us happy and of self-help books, and the influence of all this on religion. In many ways religion has become another form of self-help. We all suffer from over-exposure to positive thinking.

History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion, from its usefulness to the public; the advantage of a religious character among private persons; the mischiefs of superstition, and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern.