33 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
"Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived."-- Oscar Wilde
On going to war over religion:
You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend.
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
God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.-- Homer Simpson
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.-- Jonathan Swift
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
Religion is for people afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.
"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)
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
"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
Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds.-- Susan Sontag
I have a firm grip on reality. Now I can strangle it.
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
"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
"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
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)
People want stories about things they can relate to: life and death, good and evil.
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
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
A good pun is its own reword.
"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
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
"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities."-- Maya Angelou
Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.-- George Santayana
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.)