51 hits
"A cult is a religion with no political power."-- Tom Wolfe
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.-- Albert Einstein
Religion often gets credit for curing rascals when old age is the real medicine.
Most religions do not make men better, only warier.-- Elias Canetti
On going to war over religion:
You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend.
"Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived."-- Oscar Wilde
Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope.-- Robert Green Ingersoll
Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.-- Anatole France
Religion is for people afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.
God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.-- Homer Simpson
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight.-- Mark Twain
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.-- Jonathan Swift
"Well, I'm not a religious person myself. I'm an atheist. I think religion serves a lot of different purposes in people's lives, and I can recognize the value of that, you know, the value of ceremony, the value of community, or even just having a forum to get together and talk about ideas, about morals--that's a cool concept. But then, of course, institutional religions are so problematic."-- Ani Difranco (on religion)
I have a firm grip on reality. Now I can strangle it.
A good pun is its own reword.
Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds.-- Susan Sontag
"In corporate religions as in others, the heretic must be cast out not because of the probability that he is wrong but because of the possibility that he is right."-- Antony Jay
Organized Religion is like Organized Crime; it preys on peoples' weakness, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost impossible to eradicate.-- Mike Hermann
To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own.-- Lionel Strachey
"Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion."-- Scott Adams
"My concept of the great spirit is not the controlling force that is in institutional religion. When I say God, I'm talking about judgments over thousands of years that are horrific - love your neighbor but do what we say or we'll rape your women."-- Tori Amos
"The west won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-westerners never do."-- Samuel P. Huntington
People want stories about things they can relate to: life and death, good and evil.
And even priests were coming to spend some time in it, because of the collection of religious books. There were one thousand, two hundred and eighty-three religious books in there now, each one--according to itself--the only one any man need ever read. It was sort of nice to see them all together.-- Terry Pratchett (Small Gods)
Guru, n: A computer owner who can read the manual.
'Impossible' tends to be an opinion rather than a fact.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.-- Justice Robert Jackson
"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window."-- Stephen King
Everything we hear is an opinion, not fact. Everything we see is an perspective, not the truth.-- Marcus Aurelius
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment and hope of reward after death.-- Albert Einstein
"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities."-- Maya Angelou
If I'm not always happy, that doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong. It means I am doing something real.-- Laurie Seligman
He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to its own merits.
He's come up with half of the algorithms used in the 20th century, but wouldn't actually recognize an actual computer if you dropped it on him.-- Jason Riek (about Dana Scott)
"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed.-- George Carlin
We may begin to see reality differently simply because the computer ... provides a different angle on reality.-- Heinz Pagels
The future exists first in the imagination, then in the will, then in reality.
Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.-- George Santayana
Be warned that being an expert is more than understanding how a system is supposed to work. Expertise is gained by investigating why a system doesn't work.-- Brian Redman
PHP is a minor evil perpetrated and created by incompetent amateurs, whereas Perl is a great and insidious evil, perpetrated by skilled but perverted professionals.-- Jon Ribbens
The morality advocated by those you call "gay liberation's true believers" is indeed a radical one. It is rooted in such tenets as "all men are created equal" and that everyone is entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It is based on a strong belief in freedom of association, freedom of religion, the free exercise of individual rights and responsibilities, freedom of speech. All very radical ideas--still.-- Doretta Schrock
In science it often happens that scientists say, You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken, and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.-- Carl Sagan (1987 CSICOP keynote address.)
"Most people do not watch TV because they want to watch TV. They watch TV to relieve themselves of the burden of finding something actually enjoyable to do."
"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race -- the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions.-- Mark Twain ("The Mysterious Stranger")
For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.-- R. Clopton