RELIGION QUOTES II

quotations about religion

Religion quote

Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.

MARGARET ATWOOD

The Year of the Flood

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People still talk of getting religion, as though it were a peculiar kind of coin, alone receivable at the heavenly toll-gate; of experiencing religion, as though it were experiencing an electric shock; of an interest in Christ, as a shareholder does of his stock in some prosperous venture.

HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS

Re-statements of Christian Doctrine

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All religions, with their gods, their demi-gods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the prejudiced fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties.

MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

God and the State

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Religious beliefs prepare a kind of landscape of images, an illusory milieu favorable to every hallucination and every delirium.

MICHEL FOUCAULT

Madness & Civilization

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A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

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I say people who feel they must have a faith or religion in order to face life are showing a kind of cowardice, which in any other sphere would be considered contemptible. But when it is in the religious sphere it is thought admirable, and I cannot admire cowardice whatever sphere it is in.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind

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Religion is a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find nowhere else but in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion. Religion's eleventh commandment is "Thou shalt not question."

SIGMUND FREUD

The Future of an Illusion


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

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For to laugh is as religious as to weep; and smiles may bring us into the companionship of the Father no less than tears.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Seeking After God

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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

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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

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A man that turns to God in his old age is like a child that eats a peach and generously offers its mother the stone.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

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I am determined my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.

CHARLES LAMB

letter to John Chambers, 1817

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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

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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

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Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable.

GEORGE ELIOT

Janet's Repentance

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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

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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

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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

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God has no religion.

HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS

Re-statements of Christian Doctrine

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