Quotes on Religion

Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.

Reality, in fact, is always something you couldn't have guessed. That's one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It's a religion you couldn't have guessed.

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

It's amazing how much you can get done if you don't worry about who gets the credit.

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.

People, I thought, wanted security. They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to.

who wants flowers when youre dead? nobody.

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

All men, however highly educated, retain some superstitious inklings.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds and binding with briars my joys and desires. (from 'The Garden of Love')

The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.

The difference between hearsay and prophecy is often one of sequence. Hearsay often turns out to have been prophecy.

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.

Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it.

Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.

In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides.