Interesting quotations

On topics from God to Hate (There is no
message here; it just turned out this way)

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Included are quotes on: God, government, happiness, and hate.

God:

Rev. Tony Campolo: "We are furious that the religious right has made Jesus into a Republican. That's idolatry. To recreate Jesus in your own image rather than allowing yourself to be created in Jesus' image is what's wrong with politics."

Stephen Roberts, an Atheist talks to a theist: "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

Xenophanes, an ancient Greek philosopher: "If horses had Gods, they would look like horses!"

Two postings on an Amazon.com forum titled: "Can someone please help me with the answers?"

	"OP2009" "If man has the need and capacity to create all those thousand of other gods is it possible he created yours?"
	"S.W." "Actually, ... the Mormon cult's improvable, mythical beliefs are in conflict with your cult's improvable, mythical beliefs. Neither of your cults has one shred of evidence making it the 'truth' factual or real."

See a few dozen other quotes about God elsewhere on this site.

Government:

	Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi terrorist: Democracy is ... based on the right to choose your religion. [That is] against the rule of God."
	Anon: "A Great law protects me from the government. The Bill of Rights has 10 GREAT laws. A good law protects me from you. Laws against murder, theft, assault and the like are good laws. A poor law attempts to protect me from myself."
	Newt Gingrich, Ex-speaker of the House: "The idea that congressmen would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument."

Happiness:

	Buddha: "We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them."
	Aleister Crowley: "Only he is happy who has desired the unattainable."
	Helen Keller: "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."
	Nietzsche: "The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously."
	Thoreau: "None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm."

Hate:

Akbar Ahmed: "If we do not take this road of dialogue and understanding then I fear for the next generation. There are enough people preaching hatred, which encourages violence. We are living in times when technology, biology and chemistry have created the possibility of killing in large numbers. And, unfortunately, the cruelty and killing are often justified through a distorted interpretation of religion." Ahmed, a Muslim scholar, was addressing an inter-faith group at the National Cathedral. More details.

Anon: Quotes for T-shirt manufacturers:

	"Hate is not a family value."
	"9/11 was a faith-based initiative."

Anon: "The holiest of all spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love."

Anon: "Hate is far more of a chioice than homosexuality will ever be."

Anon: "Hate is not a family value."

Anon: "Hatreds never cease through hatred in this world; through love alone they cease. This is an eternal law." From Buddhist writings, Dhammapada 3-5.

From a Boston Globe editorial: "A religion does not create murderers. The twisted human psyche does that when it forgets that the bedrock of all faith is love." ₁

George Carin: "Did you ever stop to thnk about all the people we kill? They're always people who tell us to live together in harmony and try to love one another: Jesus, Ghandi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, John Lennon. They all said: 'Try to live together peacefully.' BAM! Right in the f---in head! Aparently we're not ready for that!"

James Haught: "As editor of the largest newspaper in West Virginia, I scan hundreds of reports daily and I am amazed by the frequency with which religion causes people to kill each other. It is a nearly universal pattern, undercutting the common assumption that religion makes people kind and tolerant."

Hermann Hesse: "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Anne Lamott: "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image, when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."

Nelson Mandela: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of their skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than ts opposite."

Jim W. Martyn, "I suggest that people who express hatred towards others do so because they are unable to love themselves or God. That's sad, and unfortunately causes many of the social and political problems in our nation and world." ₂

Golda Meir: "There will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel."

Blaise Pascal: "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." This quote is often attributed, in error, to Sam J. Ervin, Jr. in "Protecting the Constitution." (1984).

George William Russell: "If we allow ourselves to hate, that is to insure our spiritual defeat and our likeness to what we hate."

Winona Ryder, star of the movie The Crucible: "Scapegoating will go on forever. We need someone to blame - illegal immigrants, single moms, people in prison. We need someone to victimize."

John Shelby Spong: "Human wholeness can never be found in the denigration of another" ₅

Robin Toma, executive director for the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, commented on the rise in hate crimes directed at Muslims and persons of Middle Eastern ancestry: "Fear combined with prejudice resulted in hate." ₃

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

Anon, "Faith in Hate," Boston Globe, 2002-MAR-3, Page D-6. See: http://www.boston.com/
Jim W. Martyn, "A Plea for Christian Understanding & Support of Human Rights" at: http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/
"Hate Crimes Have Soared Since Sept. 11," LA Times, 2001-DEC-21, at: http://www.latimes.com/
"Purported al-Zarqawi tape: Democracy a lie," CNN.com, 2005-JAN-23, at: http://www.cnn.com/
John Shelby Spong, "Re-claiming the Bible for a non-religious world," Page 280

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Copyright � 1996 to 2011 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.
Copyrights for the individual quotations held by their creators
Last updated: 2012-DEC-16
Compiled by: B.A. Robinson