QuoteProject
The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is what should be. Now, if you're taught to live up to a what should be that never existed - only an occult superstition, no proof of this should be - then you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!
Lenny Bruce
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote critiques religious teachings that impose ideals without evidence, leading to moral judgment and condemnation of others.

Lenny Bruce's quote explores the conflict between religious teachings and reality. He argues that religions often promote ideals of how life should be, based on faith rather than tangible proof. This adherence to 'what should be' can lead individuals to harshly judge and punish others without considering the complexity of human existence, ultimately questioning the validity and impact of these moral frameworks on society.

Themes

ReligionMoralityJudgmentTruthHuman Nature

In practice

Example use cases

In a debate about the role of religion in modern society.

More from Lenny Bruce

The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour - ha ha ha ha ha - they'll take you away, man. You can't.
Lenny BruceRead
If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.
Lenny BruceRead
I'm not a comedian. I'm Lenny Bruce.
Lenny BruceRead
I'll die young, but it's like kissing God.
Lenny BruceRead
All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing in the bread line - right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.
Lenny BruceRead
In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
Lenny BruceRead

Similar quotes

'In his celebrated book, 'On Liberty', the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is "a peculiar evil." If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the "opportunity of exchanging error for truth"; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in its "collision with error." If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that: it becomes stale, soon learned by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.'
Carl SaganRead
Life on board a pleasure steamer violates every moral and physical condition of healthy life except fresh air. . . . It is a guzzling, lounging, gambling, dog's life. The only alternative to excitement is irritability.
George Bernard ShawRead
To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
R. C. SproulRead
The woman's soul is fashioned as a shelter in which other souls may unfold.
Edith SteinRead
LSD burst over the dreary domain of the constipated bourgeoisie like the angelic herald of a new psychedelic millennium. We have never been the same since, nor will we ever be, for LSD demonstrated, even to skeptics, that the mansions of heaven and gardens of paradise lie within each and all of us.
Terence MckennaRead
Indeed it may be only by risking the incoherence of identity that connection is possible.
Judith ButlerRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.