About this site

About us

Our beliefs

Your first visit?

Contact us

External links

Good books

Visitor essays

Our forum

New essays

Other site features

Buy a CD

Vital notes

World religions

BUDDHISM

CHRISTIANITY

Who is a Christian?

Shared beliefs

Handle change

Bible topics

Bible inerrancy

Bible harmony

Interpret Bible

Persons

Beliefs, creeds

Da Vinci code

Revelation, 666

Denominations

HINDUISM

ISLAM

JUDAISM

WICCA / WITCHCRAFT

Other religions

Other spirituality

Cults and NRMs

Comparing religions

About all religions

Important topics

Basic information

Gods & Goddesses

Handle change

Doubt/security

Quotes

Movies

Confusing terms

Glossary

World's end

One true religion?

Seasonal topics

Science v. Religion

More info.

Spiritual/ethics

Spirituality

Morality/ethics

Absolute truth

Peace/conflict

Attaining peace

Religious tolerance

Religious hatred

Religious conflict

Religious violence

"Hot" topics

Very hot topics

Ten commandm'ts

Abortion

Assisted suicide

Cloning

Death penalty

Environment

Equal rights - gays & bi's

Gay marriage

Nudism

Origins of the species

Sex & gender

Sin

Spanking kids

Stem cells

Women-rights

Other topics

Laws and news

Religious laws

Religious news

Quotations

Interesting quotes on the topic of religion

Sponsored link.

Quotes on religion:

John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"

Anon:

	"The worst thing you can do to a dogma is give it an empire."
	"There is nothing wrong with believing in a God. There is everything wrong in believing in a religion."

Lenny Bruce: "I think it's about time we gave up religion and got back to God."

Bruce Buursma: The Chicago Tribune: "Almost every story around the world has a religion sub-plot"

G.K. Chesterton: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

Tom Clancy: In "The Sum of all Fears:" "I just finished reading the Koran, and there's nothing in there I didn't hear in Sunday school."

William O. Douglas: Supreme Court Justice, 1952: "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."

Albert Einstein:

	"...science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."
	"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself (or herself) in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds."

Ann Emerson: "The essences of all religions speak of peace, compassion, justice and the interconnection of all life."

Benjamin Franklin, from "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion", 1728-NOV-20: "I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it."

Mahatma Ghandi:

	"If it weren't for Christians, I'd be a Christian."
	"The need of the moment is not one religion, but mutual respect and tolerance of the devotees of the different religions.:

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States:

	In A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1777: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God. Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever."
	From his book "Notes on Virginia" 1784: "Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites."
	In a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, 1800-SEP-23: "I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
	In a letter to S. Kercheval, 1810: "But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."
	In a letter to Baron von Humboldt, 1813: "History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."
	In a letter to H. Spafford, 1814: "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."
	In a letter to Thomas Whittemore, 1822-JUN-05: "Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another."
	In a letter to John Adams, 1823-APR-11: "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

Charles Kimball Baptist minister, Middle East expert, and author of a phenomenally important book: When Religion Becomes Evil. "Whatever religious people may say about their love of God or the mandates of their religion, when their behavior toward others is violent and destructive, when it causes suffering among their neighbors, you can be sure the religion has been corrupted and reform is desperately needed."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama: "This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."

James Madison, From "A Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785: "What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."

Richard Nilsen: Arizona Republic columnist: "We have reached an uncomfortable impasse. We need belief to make life meaningful, yet we cannot allow ourselves to believe in anything. Every faith, institution, political faction and ideal has proved at some level to be a tissue of hypocrisy. We decry our own cynicism, but recognize that, at some level, it is merely realism. Some [people] retreat into conventional orthodoxies; others free-float, aimless in an increasingly valueless society. But there is another alternative: starting from scratch to see if we may discover for ourselves something like universal truth and build the whole thing over again."

Thomas Paine: "Of all of the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny of religion is the worst."

Bertrand Russell:

	"My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity."
	"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."
	"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."

Seneca: "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful."

John Shelby Spong:

"Religion is primarily a search for security and not a search for truth. Religion is what we so often use to bank the fires of our anxiety. That is why religion tends toward becoming excessive, neurotic, controlling and even evil. That is why a religious government is always a cruel government. People need to understand that questioning and doubting are healthy, human activities to be encouraged not to be feared. Certainly is a vice not a virtue. Insecurity is something to be grasped and treasured. A true and healthy religious system will encourage each of these activities. A sick and fearful religious system will seek to remove them." ₁

"True religion is not about possessing the truth. No religion does that. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers." ₂

Farrell Till: "Information is religion's greatest enemy, and in an age when information is just a few keyboard strokes away from anyone with a computer, this is going to pose a greater threat to Christianity than anything it has yet 'survived.' "

Mark Twain: "The altar cloth of one aeon is the doormat of the next."

Jesse Ventura: Governor of Minnesota, 1999, in an interview with Playboy: "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business."

Voltaire (Fran�ois�Marie Arouet [1694�1778]): "If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of tyranny; if there were two, they would cut each other's throats; but there are thirty, and they live happily together in peace." from "On the Church of England"

Neal Donald Walsch:

"It is religion which has filled the hearts of men with fear of God, where once man loved that which is in all its splendor. It is religion which has ordered men to bow down before God where once man rose up in joyful outreach. It is religion which has burdened man with worries about God's wrath where once man sought God to lighten his burden. It is religion which told man to be ashamed of his body and its most natural functions where once man celebrated those functions as the greatest gifts of life."

"Everywhere religion has gone it has created disunity."

Alan Watts: from "The Essence of Alan Watts series - GOD": Many people think that the Bible is the authentic word of God and they worship the bible, making it an idol..."

	Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
	WhatMormonsDontTell.com: "Belief without proof is faith; Belief in spite of proof is folly."
	Israel Zangwill: "Scratch a Christian, and you find the pagan -- spoiled."

References used:

John Shelby Spong, "Q&A on biblical criticism," weekly mailing, 2005-JUN-15.
John Shelby Spong, "Q&A on The Parliament of the World's Religions," weekly mailing, 2007-SEP-05.

Site navigation:

Home page > Religious Info > Quotes > here

or Home page > Spiritual menu > Quotes > here

Copyright � 1996 to 2008 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.
Copyrights for the individual quotations held by their creators
Last updated: 2008-MAY-07
Compiled by: B.A. Robinson

Quotations

Interesting quotes on the topic of religion

Quotes on religion:

References used:

Go to the previous page, or return to the "Quotation menu," or choose: