RELIGION QUOTES V
quotations about religion
Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science. What the mystic finds waiting for him, then, is a humanity which has been prepared to listen to his message by other mystics invisible and present in the religion which is actually taught. Indeed his mysticism itself is imbued with this religion, for such was its starting point. His theology will generally conform to that of the theologians. His intelligence and his imagination will use the teachings of the theologians to express in words what he experiences, and in material images what he sees spiritually. And this he can do easily, since theology has tapped that very current whose source is the mystical. Thus his mysticism is served by religion, against the day when religion becomes enriched by his mysticism. This explains the primary mission which he feels to be entrusted to him, that of an intensifier of religious faith.
HENRI BERGSON
The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
I'm for decency -- period. I'm for anything and everything that bodes love and consideration for my fellow man. But when lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday -- cash me out.
FRANK SINATRA
Playboy Magazine, February 1962
In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable.
SIGMUND FREUD
The Future of an Illusion
A man has no more religion than he acts out in his life.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Men have lost their reason in nothing so much as their religion, wherein stones and clouts make martyrs.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
Urn Burial
When it comes to religion today, we tend to be long on butterflies and short on cocoons. Somehow we're going to have to relearn that the deep things of God don't come suddenly.
SUE MONK KIDD
When the Heart Waits
Sauce maketh palatable the dish of the epicure; even so doth religion sweeten the bitter cup of adversity to the Christian.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
It is hard for many people to give up the religion in which they were born; to admit that their fathers were utterly mistaken, and that the sacred records of their country are but collections of myths and fables.
ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL
Some Mistakes of Moses
Without religion no man can soar.
REUEN THOMAS
Thoughts for the Thoughtful
Nothing is really lost by a life of sacrifice: everything is lost by failure to obey God's call.
HENRY PARRY LIDDON
Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford
Man must & will have some religion; if he has not the religion of Jesus, he will have the religion of Satan & will erect the synagogue of Satan.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Jerusalem
I think of religions as franchise operations. Like chicken franchise operations. But that doesn't mean there's no chicken, right?
WILLIAM GIBSON
No Maps for These Territories
The fact that I despise religion doesn't mean I don't esteem it highly.
EUGENE IONESCO
Rhinoceros
For the existence of any religion there must be a belief that there is, somewhere in the universe, an intelligence of a higher order than man's, and that this intelligence possesses a power superior to what we call the ordinary powers of nature. And religion is simply the condition or adjustment of the relations between each individual human soul and that higher intelligence, call it by what name you will.
ROSSITER JOHNSON
"The Whispering Gallery"
The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal -- God is the Omnipotent Father -- hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates.
GORE VIDAL
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Religion, as it has been generally taught, is anything but an elevating principle. It has been used to scare the child, and appal the adult. Men have been virtually taught to glorify God by flattery, rather than by becoming excellent and glorious themselves, and thus doing honor to their Maker. Our dependence on God has been so taught, as to extinguish the consciousness of our free nature and moral power. Religion, in one or another form, has always been an engine for crushing the human soul. But such is not the religion of Jesus Christ. If it were, it would deserve no respect.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
The certainty of divine love and divine justice for the individual soul is that better part which no priest or potentate can take away and no revolution can defeat. And just to the extent that this is forgotten and dependence is placed on forms and ceremonies, on ecclesiastical authority, on governmental decrees, on arbitrary instruction--on anything outside of the soul itself--to exactly that extent will religion, or what passes for it, become worthless, if not corrupt.
ROSSITER JOHNSON
"The Whispering Gallery"
If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include the truth of contact or be forever hollow.
DAN SIMMONS
The Rise of Endymion
It has not been the fashion to be scientific about religion, but it is necessary that we should be scientific; it is time that we examined ourselves as to our faith and tried to know what we believe and why, and on what we base our belief.
C. W. LEADBEATER
The Hidden Side of Christian Festivals