Fundamentalist Religion Quotes

Twenty-five years from now all religion will be fundamentalist religion, even the Church of England. Wild-eyed "Tutuist" Anglicans will riot in Anzania (formerly the Union of South Africa). They'll force people to play contract bridge at gunpoint and make unbelievers eat little sandwiches with the crusts cut off. No woman will dare appear in the street without a small, stupid hat like Queen Di's. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity, as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed' ~ Ann Coulter

It's changed dramatically in our lifetimes. Communism is gone, so now the global war is framed in religious terms. Fundamentalist religion is rampant on all sides of this war. It casts a very dark shadow over non-fundamentalist religion. ~ Zachary Lazar

Because of the hegemony of fundamentalist religion in the United States, this country has been among the most resistant to the fact of human evolution. ~ Jerry A. Coyne

The violent secularism of al-Nasser had led Qutb to espouse a form of Islam that distorted both the message of the Quran and the Prophet's life. Qutb told Muslims to model themselves on Muhammad: to separate themselves from mainstream society (as Muhammad had made the hijrah from Mecca to Medina), and then engage in a violent jihad. But Muhammad had in fact finally achieved victory by an ingenious policy of non-violence; the Quran adamantly opposed force and coercion in religious matters, and its vision - far from preaching exclusion and separation - was tolerant and inclusive. Qutb insisted that the Quranic injunction to toleration could occur only after the political victory of Islam and the establishment of a true Muslim state. The new intransigence sprang from the profound fear that is at the core of fundamentalist religion. Qutb did not survive. At al-Nasser's personal insistence, he was executed in 1966.

Every Sunni fundamentalist movement has been influenced by Qutb. Most spectacularly it has inspired Muslims to assassinate such leaders as Anwar al-Sadat, denounced as a jahili ruler because of his oppressive policies towards his own people. The Taliban, who came to power in Afghanistan in 1994, are also affected by his ideology. ~ Karen Armstrong

Fundamentalists didn't try to disprove science. They didn't argue against it. They pronounced against it! It was the equivalent of a parent clinching an argument with a child by shouting: 'because I say so'. That's what fundamentalist religion does. It refutes not by evidence but by authority. Why is Darwin wrong? Because the Bible says so! But they did more than pontificate. They tried to ban science itself. That's ~ Richard Holloway

DO YOU believe," the disciple asked the rabbi, "that God created everything for a purpose?"
"I do," replied the rabbi.
"Well," asked the disciple, "why did God create atheists?"
The rabbi paused before giving an answer, and when he spoke his voice was soft and intense. "Sometimes we who believe, believe too much. We see the cruelty, the suffering, the injustice in the world and we say: 'This is the will of God.' We accept what we should not accept. That is when God sends us atheists to remind us that what passes for religion is not always religion. Sometimes what we accept in the name of God is what we should be fighting against in the name of God."
-Chief Rabbi Emeritus [of the United Synagogues of the British Commonwealth] Jonathan Sacks ~ Jonathan Sacks

...evil is not always opposed to religion. Indeed, when evil appropriates the ideals and institutions of religion, the results are far more damaging than when individuals carry out self-consciously evil acts. ~ Bill Ellis

Baba instilled in us a strong sense of community, and he wanted us to always give to those who didn't have. "You don't give the money to the church, mosque, government, or anyone else for that matter; you give it to the needy yourself. Don't always count on the middle man. The money you are spending in God's name is the money that benefits those in need. ~ Hani Selim

In the founding era of our country, it was not organized religion but personal faith that brought focus and unified the early leadership-maybe an unspoken faith in God, and certain values that came with that faith. So in that sense, we cannot discount, in my judgment, religious faith in politics. ~ Billy Graham

At the crossroads, the sacred may dwell. The devout practice a religion, performing its daily rituals. Perhaps we call it practice because we hope to become better. . . . but surely we practice a faith because that faith is our living. ~ Joan Oliver Goldsmith

It's the one thing we can all relate to no matter what religion, what color, what nationality: we can all relate to sex and love. ~ Enrique Iglesias

Science has carried us to the gateway to the universe. And yet our conception of our surroundings remains the disproportionate view of the still-small child. We are spiritually and culturally paralyzed, unable to face the vastness, to embrace our lack of centrality and find our actual place in the fabric of nature. We batter this planet as if we had someplace else to go. That we even do science is a hopeful glimmer of mental health. However, it's not enough merely to accept these insights intellectually while we cling to a spiritual ideology that is not only rootless in nature but also, in many ways, contemptuous of what is natural. ~ Ann Druyan

God is not subject to religion. Religion is subject to God. ~ Steve Maraboli

This is a crucial time in the fight for corporate civil rights. Just look at the hateful signs at Occupy Wallstreet: 'Corporations Are Not People!' Wow, I thought we were past the point in this country where some people aren't people just because they have different color skin or different religion or were born in a lawyer's office, only exist on paper, have no soul and can never die. ~ Stephen Colbert

The Sooners are my religion. I've been back to watch the games several times. I'm into all their sports. I'm a tremendous fan. ~ Joshua Morrow

Theology is just not important in Judaism, or in any other religion, really. There's no orthodoxy, as you have it in the Catholic Church. No complicated creeds to which everybody must subscribe. No infallible pronouncements by a pope. Nobody can tell Jews what to believe. Within reason, you can believe what you like ... We have orthopraxy instead of orthodoxy. Right practice rather then right belief. That's all. You Christians make such a fuss about theology, but it's not important in the way you think. It's just poetry, really, ways of talking about the inexpressible. ~ Hyam Maccoby

Diversity matters. Not only in what we look like, or what religion we practice, or in whom we love, but also in how we live our lives, including the order in which we go about things, the seasons in which we are able to create art. Those who are engaged in the arts should be the last to send any other message, because when artists endorse the traditional order of a society, it suggests that they have forgotten their own true role within it. ~ Robin Black

Proofs of the "truth" always start from the center of one's own religion and work outward. The result is a biased way of thinking which we are brought up to accept from childhood. Nevertheless generations lived and still do live in the conviction that they possess the "truth. ~ Erich Von Daniken

I don't think that writing, real writing, has much to do with affirming belief
if anything it causes rifts and gaps in belief which make belief more complex and more textured, more real. Good writing unsettles, destroys both the author and the reader. From my perspective, there always has to be a tension between the writer and the monolithic elements of the culture, such as religion. ~ Brian Evenson

Uncritical acceptance of any party line is an idolatrous abdication of one's core identity as Abba's child. Neither liberal fairy dust nor conservative hardball addresses human dignity, which is often dressed in rags.
Abba's children find a third option. They are guided by God's Word and by it alone. All religious and political systems , Right and Left alike, are the work of human beings. Abba's children will not sell their birthright for any mess of pottage, conservative and liberal. They hold fast to their freedom in Christ to live the gospel - uncontaminated by cultural dreck, political flotsam, and the filigreed hypocrisy of bullying religion ~ Brennan Manning

I don't go in for ancient wisdom
I don't believe just 'cos ideas are tenacious it means they're worthy ~ Tim Minchin

Like some strange little religion all its own, the one thing that makes the whole system work is the one thing that it robs you of - faith. ~ Craig Johnson

Islam is the only religion that gives dignity to the poor. ~ Ramsey Clark

Even though their arguments did not invoke religion, I think we all know what's behind these arguments. They're trying to protect religious beliefs from contradiction by science. They used to do it by prohibiting teachers from teaching evolution at all; then they wanted to teach intelligent design as an alternative theory; now they want the supposed "weaknesses" in evolution pointed out. But it's all the same program - it's all an attempt to let religious ideas determine what is taught in science courses. ~ Steven Weinberg

The exclusion of true esoteric religion has been the business of the State since ancient times. At first this was done via the establishment of the popular idealism of exoteric religious institutions in league with the State. But in modern times the same process is done by the strategic exclusion of conventional religious cultism, mystical idealism, and higher evolutionary Wisdom from the mechanisms of popular culture. ~ Adi Da

Religion folks, is open to interpretation. And how YOU interpret the message you find in your religion says a lot about YOU. ~ Christina Engela

Serve humanity, regardless of religion. Show solidarity for those suffering and oppressed. ~ Tariq Ramadan

The course of your reading should be parallel to the aim of your way of life…
Most books that contain instructions in doctrine are not useful for purification. The reading of many diverse books brings distraction of mind upon you. Know, then that not every book that teaches about religion is useful for the purification of the consciousness and the concentration of the thoughts. ~ St. Isaac Of Ninivah

What is it about our specific belief in God and His wishes that makes us so angry at the specific beliefs of another? What is it about the teachings of our respective deities that makes us more right than the next person? Or more wrong? ~ Chuck Austen

Science provides tangible evidence of its accuracy and importance. Religion makes excuses for its absence of the same. ~ PZ Myers

And suddenly he became almost lyric. "For three thousand years the Common Man has been fended off from the full and glorious life he might have had, by Make Believe. For three thousand years in one form or another he has been asking for an unrestricted share in the universal welfare. He has been asking for a fair dividend from civilisation. For all that time, and still it goes on, the advantaged people, the satisfied people, the kings and priests, the owners and traders, the gentlefolk and the leaders he trusted, have been cheating him tacitly or deliberately, out of his proper share and contribution in the common life. Sometimes almost consciously, sometimes subconsciously, cheating themselves about it as well. When he called upon God, they said 'We'll take care of your God for you', and they gave him organised religion. When he calls for Justice, they say 'Everything decently and in order', and give him a nice expensive Law Court beyond his means. When he calls for order and safety too loudly they hit him on the head with a policeman's truncheon. When he sought knowledge, they told him what was good for him. And to protect him from the foreigner, so they said, they got him bombed to hell, trained him to disembowel his fellow common men with bayonets and learn what love of King and Country really means.

"All with the best intentions in the world, mind you.

"Most of these people, I tell you, have acted in perfect good faith. They manage to believe that i ~ H.G. Wells

We cannot believe that the church of God is already possessed of all that light which God intends to give it; nor that all Satan's lurking places have already been found out. ~ Jonathan Edwards

Love for others what you love for yourself ~ Anonymous

Religion itself cannot but be dynamic. In order to combat modern materialistic mores, to fight nihilism and egotism, religion must also develop, must be flexible in its forms, and it must have a correlation with the cultural forms of the epoch. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Religion, like poetry, is not a mere idea, it is expression. The self-expression of God is in the endless variety of creation; and our attitude toward the Infinite Being must also in its expression have a variety of individuality ceaseless and unendi. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the wretched inadequacy of sermons and the sublimity of prayer. ~ Victor Hugo

To look at them, leaning against the counter in the tiny kitchen, is to understand the connection between farming, itself an act of blind faith, and religion. If you can believe in a year's worth or corn or beans, it seems, you can believe in anything. ~ Nick Reding

Science is a lie in day-light, with a lot witnesses. Religion is a truth in darkness, without any need for such witness! ~ Thiruman Archunan

Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch. ~ Larry Flynt

Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure that they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes. There must always be believers. Fools, idiots, those who hear voices, those who speak in tongues. We are your lunatics. We surrender our lives to make your nonbelief possible. You are sure that you are right but you don't want everyone to think as you do. There is no truth without fools. We are your fools, your madwomen, rising at dawn to pray, lighting candles, asking statues for good health, long life. ~ Don DeLillo

Religion often is misused for purely power-political goals, including war. ~ Hans Kung

Faith is a strong fortress. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Atheism is not a religion. Abstinence is not a sex position. ~ Richard Dawkins

If I were asked to define the Hindu creed, I should simply say: Search after truth through non-violent means. A man may not believe in God and still call himself a Hindu. Hinduism is a relentless pursuit after truth ... Hinduism is the religion of truth. Truth is God. Denial of God we have known. Denial of truth we have not known. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

It is in the giving up of self that human beings can find the most ecstatic and lasting, solid, durable joy of life. And it is death that provides life with all its meaning. This "secret" is the central wisdom of religion. The process of giving up the self (which is ~ M. Scott Peck

Religion and philosophy, philosophy and religion - they're two words which are both ... different. In spelling. ~ Eddie Izzard

Is Islam such a weak religion that it cannot tolerate a book written against it? Not my Islam! ~ Malala Yousafzai

The reality is that if religion is to be treated with intellectual respect, then it must stand the test of truth, ~ Ravi Zacharias

If Jehovah cannot support his religion without going into partnership with a State Legislature, I think he ought to give it up. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Many people are trying to remove religion from public life. Under the banner of pluralism, cultural and political leaders are seeking to push all talk about God out of the public arena. ~ Charles Colson

Religion can reform a person's life, but it can never transform him. Only the Holy Spirit can transform! ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

Proof then, has retreated in the face of belief. Science, once heralded as the arbiter of truth, has had its facade of objectivity punctured. Intellectuals may point to the uncertainty of Heisenberg, but generally this has more to do with the growing distrust of statistics and the knowledge that scientists in the pay of governments and multi-nationals are no more objective than their masters. Science, once the avowed enemy of religion, now sees books BT Christian physicists and Taoist mathematicians. Science sells washing powders and status symbols and comes in the form of icons of technological nostalgia. ~ Phil Hine

Truth is my religion and ahimsa is the only way of its realization. ~ Mahatma Gandhi