Religion Quotes - Page 23

Essentially, almost all humans are born with a fear of the unknown. It casts a pall of anxiety which pushes us into the arms of religions and soothsayers and their made-up answers.

Mario Stinger

When I finally applied logic to Religion that was when I quit paying after life insurance and quit going

Stanley Victor Paskavich

Given the level of understanding and the fact that they believed already in a set of myths and superstitions, it was the easiest and fastest way to proceed.

Mario Stinger

In Gilead, the narrator's friend's son describes himself not as an atheist but in "state of categorical unbelief." He says, "I don't even believe God doesn't exist, if you see what I mean." I pointed this passage out to Mom and said it closely matched my own views--I just didn't think about religion.

Will Schwalbe

There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have relinquished belief only with regret. To this I reply: who wishes that there was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime, and who regarded us as its private property even after we died? How happy we ought to be, at the reflection that there exists not a shred of respectable evidence to support such a horrible hypothesis.

Christopher Hitchens

When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself?

W Somerset Maugham

No one knows loneliness like an atheist. When an average person feels isolated, he can call through the depths of his soul to One who knows him and sense an answer. An atheist cannot allow himself that luxury, for he has to crush the urge and remind himselfof its absurdity.

Jeffrey Lang

Differ though we might with Christianity's view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis, which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one--that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.

Alain de Botton

The most dangerous aspect of religion is its tendency to glorify the absurd and justify the abhorrent.

Stifyn Emrys

Obsoletes and absolutes are the stock in trade of religions that place their faith in an 'unchanging' god while faced with the reality of an ever-changing world.

Stifyn Emrys

Jesus was crucified for doing nothingAnd God is worshiped for even less.

Porcupine Tree

If we subject religious claims to a lesser degree of scrutiny, we should not be surprised if religious people subject us to a greater degree of servitude.

Stifyn Emrys

People consider Islam as the best religion of world; I wonder if best of them is that much worse, I am really proud of being an Atheist.

M.F. Moonzajer

I am scared of the day, when they turn atheism into another religion for controlling masses.

M.F. Moonzajer

The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.

Ricky Gervais

Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out. Science is humble. It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know. It bases its conclusions and beliefs on hard evidence -- evidence that is constantly updated and upgraded. It doesn’t get offended when new facts come along. It embraces the body of knowledge. It doesn’t hold on to medieval practices because they are tradition.

Ricky Gervais

Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now, we are witnessing a transformation, a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.

Czesław Miłosz

I'm sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don't think there's any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock.

Howard Stern

For wicked people to do evil requires money, and good people superstition. Combining these elements and we get organized religion, but to achieve the worst of all evil conflate politics to the compound and the tragedies are endless.

Sean S. Kamali

For wicked people to do evil requires money, and good people superstition. Combining these elements gives us organized religion, but to achieve the worst of all evil conflate politics to the compound and the tragedies are endless.

Sean Kamali

For Dawkins, atheism is a necessary consequence of evolution. He has argued that the religious impulse is simply an evolutionary mistake, a ‘misfiring of something useful’, it is a kind if virus, parasitic on cognitive systems naturally selected because they had enabled a species to survive.Dawkins is an extreme exponent of the scientific naturalism, originally formulated by d’Holbach, that has now become a major worldview among intellectuals. More moderate versions of this “scientism” have been articulated by Carl Sagan, Steven Weinberg, and Daniel Dennett, who have all claimed that one has to choose between science and faith. For Dennett, theology has been rendered superfluous, because biology can provide a better explanation of why people are religious. But for Dawkins, like the other “new atheists” – Sam Harris, the young American philosopher and student of neuroscience, and Christopher Hitchens, critic and journalist – religion is the cause of the problems of our world; it is the source of absolute evil and “poisons everything.” They see themselves in the vanguard of a scientific/rational movement that will eventually expunge the idea of God from human consciousness.But other atheists and scientists are wary of this approach. The American zoologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) followed Monod in his discussion of the implications of evolution. Everything in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection, but Gould insisted that science was not competent to decide whether God did or did not exist, because it could only work with natural explanations. Gould had no religious axe to grind; he described himself as an atheistically inclined agnostic, but pointed out that Darwin himself had denied he was an atheist and that other eminent Darwinians - Asa Gray, Charles D. Walcott, G. G. Simpson, and Theodosius Dobzhansky - had been either practicing Christians or agnostics. Atheism did not, therefore, seem to be a necessary consequence of accepting evolutionary theory, and Darwinians who held forth dogmatically on the subject were stepping beyond the limitations that were proper to science.

Karen Armstrong

If I replace the word God with the word nature, I am far more at ease with the whole religious enterprise.

Alan S. Kesselheim

Radical Muslims fly planes into buildings. Radical Christians kill abortion doctors. Radical Atheists write books.

Hemant Mehta

He didn't like religion, hadn't liked it for years, but he adored churches, loved them like old scientific instruments whose time is long past but are nevertheless fascinating and strange.

Bruce Robinson

I would be quite content to go to their children's bar mitzvahs, to marvel at their Gothic cathedrals, to 'respect' their belief that the Koran was dictated, though exclusively in Arabic, to an illiterate merchant, or to interest myself in Wicca and Hindu and Jain consolations. And as it happens, I will continue to do this without insisting on the polite reciprocal condition - which is that they in turn leave me alone. But this, religion is ultimately incapable of doing.

Christopher Hitchens

People say it is impossible to get out of stupidity; well, I was born religious and here I am an atheist.

M.F. Moonzajer

It is when we stop believing that religions have been handed down from above or else that they are entirely daft that matters become more interesting.

Alain de Boton

The new atheists show a disturbing lack of understanding of or concern about the complexity and ambiguity of modern experience, and their polemic entirely fails to mention the concern for justice and compassion that, despite their undeniable failings, has been espoused by all three of the monotheisms. Religious fundamentalists also develop an exagerrated view of their enemy as the epitome of evil. This tendency makes critique of the new atheists too easy. They never discuss the work of such theologians as Bultmann or Tillich, who offer a very different view of religion and are closer to mainstream tradition than any fundamentalist. Unlike Feurerbach, Marx and Freud, the new atheists are not theologically literate. As one of their critics has remarked, in any military strategy it is essential to confront the enemy at its strongest point; failure to do so means that their polemic remains shallow and lacks intellectual depth. It is also morally and intellectually conservative. Unlike Feurerback, Marx, Ingersoll or Mill, these new Atheists show little concern about the poverty, injustice and humiliation that has inspired many of the atrocities they deplore; they show no yearning for a better world. Nor, like Nietzsche , Sartre or Camus, do they compel their readers to face up to the pointlessness and futility that ensue when people lack the resources to create a sense of meaning. They do not appear to consider the effect of such nihilism on people who do not have privileged lives and absorbing work.

Karen Armstrong

If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks.

Mark Twain

I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it's as if they can't get past their emotions, and in their rage they become as faith-driven as the beliefs they criticise. I always said they give scientists a bad name. After all, science has to be about asking unthinkable questions, not closing down debate.

Scarlett Thomas

Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity.

Stephen Greenblatt

If Heaven actually exists, I don't need anyone to be my real estate broker. After all, what is religion but an attempt to sell you a share in the ultimate gated community?

Quentin R. Bufogle

It hurts so badly when you grow up and understand that everything you believed in and devoted yourself were just fallacy and stupidity.

M.F. Moonzajer

How you can argue with those who whip, stone and murder people because they wanted to live their life?

M.F. Moonzajer

Religion has kept all of us suffocated, I can’t raise my voice you can’t raise your voice, still they call us fundamentalists.

M.F. Moonzajer

If the United Nations wants to do something to be remembered forever, I guess that would be freeing people from insanity of religion.

M.F. Moonzajer

Torturing innocents, murdering civilians and destroying public property; they are all the gifts we have been given by religion.

M.F. Moonzajer

In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessings. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.

A.A. Lewis

In a society where women are truly equal to men, a kid bred by a theist mother and an atheist father is born an agnostic. In a patriarchal society, the kid is automatically an atheist.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

One of the main reasons and excuses behind every religious failure is a” FALSE PROMISE”.

M.F. Moonzajer

It’s a strange myth that atheists have nothing to live for. It’s the opposite. We have nothing to die for. We have everything to live for.

Ricky Gervais

A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism.

Dion Fortune

It is suspected, by some, that spiritual beings are extremely jealous of the natural world because they are nothing more than a figment of the imagination. This might explain their compulsive and obsessive behavior in trying to convince others they are real, and that the natural world is an illusion. The end of the world scenarios they conjure up reveal their Napoleon whit and superiority complex.

Christopher Zzenn Loren

There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

Sam Harris

But here's the biggest head-scratcher of all: Not only are atheists destroying our country, they're completely deluding themselves. There's simply no way to prove that there is no God. If I didn't hate them so much, I'd feel bad for these folks. Imagine going through life completely duped into thinking that there's no invisible, omniscient higher power guiding every action on Earth. It's just so arbitrary! Can't they see?

Stephen Colbert

May all beings be free of pretended happiness.May all beings find their deepest lie.May all beings see the nature of their inner turmoil.May all beings realize what they are not.And through this, may all beings become who they already are.

Christopher Zzenn Loren

It is my belief that when a child has been robbed of their visionary rights that they gravitate toward religion and spirituality in an effort to regain their Subjective autonomy.

Christopher Zzenn Loren

I believe religious indoctrination is child abuse.

Christopher Zzenn Loren

The inner imaginary universe of the human primate is the battlefield of the ages

Christopher Zzenn Loren

One of the dangers of the spiritual story is that it disassociates humans from reality. Relieving world hunger, crime and suffering are replaced with fantasies of other worlds, dimensions, gods or forces that will magically take care of humanities plight. I once asked a metaphysical friend of mine what she thought of rape. She replied, “People choose these experiences before birth to learn human lessons of rape.” I asked her about world hunger, sex trafficking, genocide, and torture, and she replied with the same logic. At that moment, I realized the dangerous implications of esoteric ideology in our world.

Christopher Zzenn Loren

Separating one's “self” physically from the world (as an unseen entity) alienates the human being from the facts of a sensual world and its realities. In order to have a self, you must provide a story for that self. Whether it is the tale of past pain or future fears the etheric self requires a story because it is hitchhiking on the natural.

Christopher Zzenn Loren

Let me make this radiantly clear—if you believe in spirits and the metaphysical world, your biology will create the illusion that these things are real.

Christopher Zzenn Loren

I believe emotional suppression fueled by a shamed imagination lies at the root of society's ailments. It is the believing leaders of religion that keep the “denial circus” going decade after decade. We have, for too long, supported this tyranny of delusion. We have given the guru and the preacher the stage one too many times. It is time to wake up and replace the preacher with the human teacher—a human who is the intelligence of their whole organism.

Christopher Zzenn Loren

The importance of awakening to our evolutionary origins is paramount because irrational ideas about “who we are” fuel our sense of separateness

Christopher Zzenn Loren

I Am PrimateI was once taught, that I am a soul in a body.I once believed I was separate from the earth.A stranger in a strange land,a sinner in need of a Savior.But, isn't this my home? This beautiful world?Isn't this my form?These hands, these eyes, this touch?Am I to believe I have violated a rule,just by being born?Who claims this right to judge,and on what authority do you stand?The truth screams out from my cells.I am not the imagination of a God,I am a voice in the earth,I am that which you deny!The earth is my home and the stars my destiny.I will touch the planets throughthe hands of my children. . . not the will of your ghost!I am a voice in the evolutionary continuumand I claim the right to be alive,without your story.For I Am Human, I Am Proud,and I AM . . . PRIMATE!

Christopher Zzenn Loren

I suppose the spiritual trance is harder to break than the religious one because the delusion is more difficult to distinguish. You have a quasi-cloud of ideas that include wonderful concepts of openness and altruism without the blatant anthropomorphism of religion.

Christopher Zzenn Loren

I do not see the value of separating humans into a body, soul and spirit. We don't do this with any other mammals, so why do we do it with ourselves? Thinking and fresh ideas arise naturally from the rhythm of one’s internal felt-sense. It is the process artists demonstrate to humanity—to express our individuality in real-time, as a living process, rather than a “copied” idea.

Christopher Zzenn Loren

I am an atheist and I consider religions to be a form of collective neurosis. I am not an enemy of the Catholics, as I am not an enemy of the tuberculars, the myopic or the paralytics; you cannot be an enemy of the sick, only their good friend in order to help them cure themselves.

Diego Rivera

Some people spend their entire lives devoted to a religion that claims to be the ‘right’ religion... they often deny scientific evidence that contradicts their archaic holy books, they sometimes oppress those who disagree with them, and they always do what they do in the name of an unknowable deity... but sometimes, they wake up. Occasionally, they realize that all religions are man-made and that none of them are ‘right.’ And when they do, they can live happy and fulfilling lives without dogma and without anticipating or fearing an afterlife.

David G. McAfee

If you want to expel religion from our European civilization, you can only do it by means of another system of doctrines; and such a system would from the outset take over all the psychological characteristics of religion—the same sanctity, rigidity and intolerance, the same prohibition of thought—for its own defence. You have to have something of the kind in order to meet the requirements of education. And you cannot do without education.

Sigmund Freud

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Religion Quotes - Page 23

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