Religion Tolerance Quotes

The test of faith is whether I can make space for difference. Can I recognize God's image in someone who is not in my image, who language, faith, ideal, are different from mine? If I cannot, then I have made God in my image instead of allowing him to remake me in his. ~ Jonathan Sacks

All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it. ~ Roger Ebert

I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different religion and he want to make argument about God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man say about God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, 'I agree with you.' Then you go home, pray what you want. This is my idea for people to have peace about religion. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. ~ Joseph Campbell

Love for others what you love for yourself ~ Anonymous

The Catholic chruch as threatened your life - do you not want revenge? Have you not sold your hatred to the Pretestant cause to work against the church that has hunted you?"
"No," I said simply. "I hate no one. I want only to be left in peace to understand the mysteries of the universe in my own way."
"God has already laid out for us the mysteries of the universe, or as much as He permits us to understand. You think your way is better?"
"Better than these wars of dogma that have led men to burn and fillet one another across Europe for fifty years? Yes, I do."
"Then what is it you believe?"
I looked at him. "I believe that, in the end, even the devils will be pardoned. ~ S.J. Parris

A new religion with only one commandment: Thou shalt not tell others how to live. ~ Marty Rubin

These lecture provide material for the consideration of common factors, in theory and in development, from the viewpoint of the idea of surrender to the Divine Will, reviewing some aspects of the interplay between Christians and Moslems, and introducing material from and about Sufis. ~ Idries Shah

Religion is like a pair of shoes ... Find one that fits for you, but don't make me wear your shoes. ~ George Carlin

I'm not out to disturb anybody's faith. I happen to be happy and comfortable with a belief system that has a dual deity and operates on a lunar schedule. It suits my needs. If you happen to be happy and comfortable with a belief system that features a single masculine deity and operates on a solar schedule, fine. I don't give a fat damn. What matters is what you do, not who's name you do it in. ~ Mercedes Lackey

If people but knew their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

Should we tolerate the blatant incorrectness of religion? Tolerating ignorance, superstition and stupidity will not provide for a healthy advancement of our society. Religion is cancer for modern thought, rationality, and even common sense. ~ Odin Zeus McGaffer

From a personal experience and the examination of literature, I feel that we cannot take for granted that a dialogue, without information and perhaps without understanding, is possible between any individuals or groups on all levels. So the prerequisite is information. ~ Idries Shah

It is no longer a question of a Christian going about to convert others to the faith, but of each one being ready to listen to the other and so to grow together in mutual understanding. ~ Bede Griffiths

I have always known that the best of the Saracens could out-Christian many of us Christians. ~ Ellis Peters

... when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief. ~ Idries Shah

Most people have extremely high tolerance levels for intolerance. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

For me, religion is like a rhinoceros: I don't have one, and I'd really prefer not to be trampled by yours. ~ Silas Sparkhammer

In my religion it's actually better to know you're doing wrong and try to improve that wrong than to think philosophically that what you're doing is right and in fact it is wrong. ~ Jack Abramoff

The world's religions are tribal and xenophobic by nature, serving to regulate moral rules within the community but not seeking to embrace humanity outside their circle. Religion, by definition, forms an identity of those like us, in sharp distinction from those not us, those heathens, those unbelievers. Most religions were pulled into the modern Enlightenment with their fingernails dug into the past. Change in religious beliefs and practices, when it happens at all, is slow and cumbersome, and it is almost always in response to the church or its leaders facing outside political or cultural forces. ~ Michael Shermer

Outlawing religion form the political arena is not what the Founding Fathers intended when they drafted the First Amendment. We do a grave disservice to our country by removing the influence of religion. If you separate God from the public arena, inevitably you separate good from our government. ~ Bill Bright

I think this is a very important thing to understand about Christianity. It was from its very beginnings, it seems, a religion of great quarrels and wars, and it wooed the power of temporal authorities, and made them part of itself in the hope of resolving through sheer force its many arguments. ~ Anne Rice

Sufism, they say, is that which enables one to understand religion, irrespective of its current outward form. ~ Idries Shah

Those who become entangled in these false ideas are prevented from perceiving the Integral Oneness. ~ Rene Magritte

I know what I want, I have a goal, an opinion, I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I'm a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage. ~ Anne Frank

The religious mysteries direct us toward the true nature of reality that we are unaware of. Religion opens our mind and spirit to the greater reality. Much of what we call supernatural is only what we don't understand. ~ Howard Storm

Religion was a riddle to her. Believe this, and only this, because we say so. If you don't you're buying a one-way ticket to everlasting Hell. ~ J.D. Robb

Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed. ~ Epictetus

Once a Buddha, always a Buddha, Sam. Dust off some of your old parables. You have about fifteen minutes.'
Sam held out his hand. Give me some tobacco and a paper. ~ Roger Zelazny

The classical man's worst fear was inglorious death; the modern man's worst fear is just death ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

At any rate', said I, 'we can now state the problem accurately. People usually think the problem is how to reconcile what we now know about the size of the universe with our traditional ideas of religion. That turns out not to be the problem at all. The real problem is this. The enormous size of the universe and the insignificance of the earth were known for centuries, and no one ever dreamed that they had any bearing on the religious question. Then, less than a hundred years ago, they are suddenly trotted out as an argument against Christianity. And the people who trot them out carefully hush up the fact that they were known long ago. Don't you think that all you atheists are strangely unsuspicious people? ~ C.S. Lewis

Of religion I know nothing
at least, in its favor. ~ Lord Byron

In many (most?) churches there are programs and activities ... but so little worship. There are songs and anthems and musicals ... but so little worship. There are announcements and readings and prayers ... but so little worship. ~ Charles R. Swindoll

Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays. From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate. ~ Elton John

And I, Nephi, took one of the daughters of Ishmael to wife.' Well Mr. Go-And-Do just went and did! ~ John Bytheway

Aging and the prospect of dying by no means enhance the attractiveness of fictitious comforts to come in paradise, or the veracity of malicious myths about hellfire and damnation. Fear and feeblemindedness cannot be credibly pressed into service to support fantastic claims about the cosmos and our ultimate destiny.

Whether one would even consider turning to religion in advanced years has much to do with upbringing, which makes all the more important standing up to the presumptions of the religious in front of children. One would regard the Biblical events – a spontaneously igniting bush, a sea's parting, human parthenogenesis, a resurrected prophet and so on – that supposedly heralded God's intervention in our affairs as the stuff of fairy tales were it not for the credibility we unwittingly lend them by keeping quiet out of mistaken notions of propriety. ~ Jeffrey Tayler

Religion is usually the tool the self-righteous man uses to exalt himself. ~ Matt Chandler

Your Honor," the jury foreman began to read, "We the jury find in favor of the . . . ~ Mark M. Bello

The Bible is the best of books, and I wish it were in the hands of every one. It is indispensable to the safety and permanence of our institutions. A free government can not exist without religion and morals, and there cannot be morals without religion. Especially should the Bible be placed in the hands of the young. It is the best school book in the world. I would that all our people were brought up under the influence of that holy book. ~ Zachary Taylor

To no form of religion is woman indebted for one impulse of freedom, as all alike have taught her inferiority and subjection. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you. ~ Haj Amin Al-Husseini

My country, my people, my religion-that way madness lies. ~ Marty Rubin

What I wanted to express very clearly and intensely was that the reason these people had to invent or imagine heroes and gods is pure fear. Fear of life and fear of death. ~ Frida Kahlo

The theory that thought is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense; for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction but of which it would be meaningless to use the words 'true' or 'false'. ~ C.S. Lewis

He expressed unconditional agreement with the uselessness and absurdity of the word 'fatherland'; he agreed with the idea that religion was harmful;33 but he loudly and firmly asserted that boots were inferior to Pushkin,34 ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being. ~ Rumi

A fundamentalist is someone who wants to substitute what he believes for what you believe," Max said. "And someone who thinks he knows the will of God better than anyone else. ~ Robin Wasserman

Humans have always wondered the big questions, "Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going?" It's part of human nature. It's perhaps the underpinnings of religion. ~ Sylvia Earle

Be a human being and you'd automatically be religious, but if you try to be a scripture-worm then you'd be neither religious, nor human – you'd be a biological bag of trash. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Above all else, guard your heart for it affects everything else you do. ~ Anonymous

A man has no more character than he can command in a time of crisis. ~ Ralph W. Sockman

Anyone who seeks to help others - whether by means of religion or by means of medicine - must eschew the use of force. ~ Thomas Szasz

Critics say the OWS protesters hate the rich. Come on! Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning - they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more. ~ Matt Taibbi

The founder brought the laws from the lawgiver; the faithful are meant to announce the laws to the lawgiver. ~ Franz Kafka

Religion and culture are two important ways in which we as humans find our identity. That's certainly true for me. ~ Gene Luen Yang

Time and time again, technology, along with advances in neuroscience and even genetics, seems to be validating things our ancestors knew all along by revealing exactly what happens physiologically during meditation and how regular practice can improve our bodies and minds. ~ Benjamin W Decker

All religion is slavery. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Jonathan Trumbull, as Governor of Connecticut, in official proclamation: 'The examples of holy men teach us that we should seek Him with fasting and prayer, with penitent confession of our sins, and hope in His mercy through Jesus Christ the Great Redeemer." Proclamation for a Day of Fasting and Prayer, March 9, 1774'

Samuel Chase, while Chief Justice of Maryland,1799 (Runkel v Winemiller) wrote: 'By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion...'

The Pennsylvania Supreme court held (Updegraph v The Commonwealth), 1824: 'Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law...not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men...'

In Massachusetts, the Constitution reads: 'Any every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law: and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.'
Samuel Adams, as Governor of Massachusetts in a Proclamation for a Day of Fasting and Prayer, 1793: 'we may with one heart and voice humbly implore His gracious and free pardon through Jesus Christ, supplicating His Divine aid . . . [and] above all to cause the religion of Jesus Christ, in its true spirit, to spread far and wide till the whole ear ~ Samuel Adams

saw religion in Odessa used not to reinforce religious beliefs at all but as an excuse for people to come together and be made comfortable with their own social beliefs in racial and gender bigotry. ~ H. G. Bissinger

Religion provides the solace for the turmoil that it creates. ~ Byron Danelius