Quotes on Religion

The teachings of Christianity - from vicarious redemption to the love of enemies, no thought for the morrow need be taken, that no thrift or care or family or society or solidarity is necessary - these are immoral teachings that have done and continue to inflict untold moral and physical harm on our species. And until we outgrow this nonsense, we have no chance of emancipating ourselves.

I care only to know, if possible, the lasting meaning that lies in all religious doctrine from the beginning till now.

Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.

Religions are founded by what mystics say when they come back; but what the mystics say is not the same as what happened to them.

At the age when other children, I imagine, experience their first 'feeling' for a person, or for art, or for religion, I was affectionate, good, and even pious: by that I mean that under the influence of my mother, I was devoted to the Child Jesus.

The idea that there is a God who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality.

We should not ask, ‘What is wrong with the world?’ for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather we should ask, “What has happened to salt and light?

One filled with joy preaches without preaching.

The worshiper is the father of the gods.

We don't cut up when mad men are bred by the old legitimate regular stock religions, but we can't allow wildcat religions to indulge in such disastrous experiments.

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.

The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.

The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship

I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.

A Puritan is someone who is desperately afraid that, somewhere, someone might be having a good time.

LAUGHTER is the very essence of religion. Seriousness is never religious, cannot be religious. Seriousness is of the ego, part of the very disease. Laughter is egolessness. Yes, there is a difference between when you laugh and when a religious man laughs. The difference is that you laugh always about others - the religious man laughs at himself, or at the whole ridiculousness of man's being. Religion cannot be anything other than a celebration of life.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character.