Religious Tolerance Quotes

Religious tolerance is something we should all practice; however, there have been more persecution and atrocities committed in the name of religion and religious freedom than anything else. ~ Walter Koenig

I believe that the capital of the Republic of Albania is a suitable venue for discussing the dialogue among religions and civilizations, notably in the countries of South East Europe, because we are well familiar with this country's track record of religious tolerance. ~ Georgi Parvanov

The toleration of those that differ from others in matters of religion is so agreeable to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the genuine reason of mankind, that it seems monstrous for men to be so blind as not to perceive the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light. I will not here tax the pride and ambition of some, the passion and uncharitable zeal of others. These are faults from which human affairs can perhaps scarce ever be perfectly freed; but yet such as nobody will bear the plain imputation of, without covering them with some specious colour; and so pretend to commendation, whilst they are carried away by their own irregular passions. But, however, that some may not colour their spirit of persecution and unchristian cruelty with a pretence of care of the public weal and observation of the laws; and that others, under pretence of religion, may not seek impunity for their libertinism and licentiousness; in a word, that none may impose either upon himself or others, by the pretences of loyalty and obedience to the prince, or of tenderness and sincerity in the worship of God; I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. If this be not done, there can be no end put to the controversies that will be always arising between those that have, or at least pretend to have, on the one side, a concernment for the interest of men's s ~ John Locke

There can never be a conflict between science and religion, once you understand the spiritual knack of the human brain circuits. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Religious tolerance has developed more as a consequence of the impotence of religions to impose their dogmas on each other than as a consequence of spiritual humility in the quest for understanding first and last things. ~ Sidney Hook

If a religion cannot help a human wherever he or she stands, it is not of much use. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The highest creed is Universal Acceptance. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Colonization of the world, more often than not by robbery and warfare, spread Christianity into the Americas and other corners of the earth, just as Islam was spread throughout Asia and Africa. lt is not a coincidence that the two most widespread religions in the world today are the most warlike and intolerant religions in history. Before the rise of Christianity, religious tolerance, including a large degree of religious freedom, was not only custom but in many ways law under the Roman and Persian empires. They conquered for greed and power, rarely for any declared religious reasons, and actually sought to integrate foreign religions into their civilization, rather than seeking to destroy them. People were generally not killed because they practiced a different religion. Indeed, the Christians were persecuted for denying that the popular gods existed - not for following a different religion. In other words, Christians were persecuted for being intolerant. ~ Richard Carrier

[E]veryone is orthodox to himself… ~ John Locke

Since the rise of Islam, Jews had lived as a tolerated minority, or dhimmi, a status granted to Jews and Christians because they were monotheists. Despite a growing tendency in our own times to paint the premodern Islamic world as an Eden of religious tolerance in which Jews flourished, they always lived by the whims of fickle rulers and the mood of a hostile majority. In the eyes of that majority they were effete, lacking in honor, and powerless by definition, but as long as they accepted the supremacy of Muslims they were usually allowed to live and observe their faith and occasionally to prosper. ~ Matti Friedman

Of course, we in the West like to pat ourselves on the back and say we're more tolerant, and we are
but tolerance is not the same thing as acceptance. It just means, We think you're crazy and going to hell, but we won't kill you for it
we'll tolerate you. But you don't know who the Man in the Sky is, and we do. ~ Bill Maher

Positive secularism is not tolerance of all religions, but it is the total denial of religious beliefs: it is the emergence of homogeneous human outlook which is based upon verifiable facts of life. ~ Goparaju Ramachandra Rao

Devoted to principles of liberty, equality, and religious tolerance
which, dear internet, is not necessarily the same thing as satanism
Masonic lodge became the de facto clubhouses of the Age of Reason. ~ Sarah Vowell

We turn now over the debate of the proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero ... The controversy has raised profound questions about religious tolerance and prejudice in the United States. ~ Christiane Amanpour

But these two children were still young and knew little about these religious or any other kinds of differences. They saw each other as quite similar – both of them were humans and had the will to play and socialize. So what if they spoke different languages? – Their games didn't need any language. So what if they were of different genders? – Their games could be played by anyone. So what if they were of different nationalities? – Their games didn't concern any national affairs. To play their games, they just needed one thing – each other. ~ Tamuna Tsertsvadze

Tolerance and freedom of thought are the veritable antidotes to religious fanaticism. ~ Baron D'Holbach

I am proud to say to you that, I am a scientist and I accept all religions to be biologically true and equal. My pursuit of understanding the human mind has taught me universal tolerance. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Regardless of the perpetual battle between believers and atheists, for me, religion is a tool of making friends, rather than making enemies. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Tolerance and human rights require each other. ~ Simon Wiesenthal

Toleration ought in reality to be merely a transitory mood. It must lead to recognition. To tolerate is to affront. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A religion that demands absolutely irrefutable obedience, is anything but religion. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Until one nation ceases its attempts to dominate another, there will never be true freedom. Until one religion relinquishes its quest to prove its god superior to that of another, there shall never be world peace. We will never truly prosper or experience lasting harmony, until we refrain from preaching the gospel of our own moral values and our personal preferences by forcing it upon others. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

We in the United States are pluralistic respecting ultimate beliefs. Profound values exist apart from a devotion to a god. Indeed, those who discriminate against nonbelievers flout the principle of religious tolerance that they often profess. ~ Norman Dorsen

No religion is absolutely perfect. Yet not only do we fight for religion, but also are we often willing to sacrifice our lives for it. And what we hopelessly fail to do is to live it. A true religion is that which has no caste, no creed, no colour. It is but an all-uniting and all-pervading embrace. ~ Sri Chinmoy

On the surface, we are all different. We ascribe to a variety of belief systems, attain our identity from various stories, get our customs from diverse cultures, and so on. And, rightly or wrongly, we generally define ourselves by these differences - there is no denying that. However, when we look beneath the surface, we discover certain universal elements. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

Non-Dualism is the future of all Religions. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Nothing is more logical than persecution. Religious tolerance is a kind of infidelity. ~ Ambrose Bierce

If a person takes comfort in his or her faith upon divinity in times of distress, then who the hell am I to say, that the person is delusional. ~ Abhijit Naskar

. 'In religion itself there is nothing mysterious to its author,' Madison wrote in 1792. 'The mystery lies in the dimness of the human sight.' If it is ultimately impossible for mortals to know God's mind, the history of persecution becomes cosmically tragic - two thousand years of dogmatic men burning one another over religious ideas whose veracity only God can know. ~ Steven Waldman

Don't hate the Muslims or Islam. Hate if you must, the fundamentalists who consistently compel the human society to turn away from even the peace loving Muslims. However, the term hate would be an understatement when we are referring to the fundamentalists. The fundamentalists are the biggest enemies of the human race. Without the presence of the fundamentalist inspiration, no violence in the name of religion shall ever fester on this planet. People from all religious, spiritual and non-religious background shall live in harmony, enriching each other's lives, if there are no fundamentalists to divide them apart. ~ Abhijit Naskar

In the hands of blood-sucking monsters a scripture becomes a weapon that takes away humanism from the heart of humans and fills them with hate, rage and selfishness, whereas, in the hands of modern human beings the same scripture can become the greatest philosophical tool to endow the species with goodness and compassion. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The insight of polytheism is conducive to far-reaching religious tolerance. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Despite his image as a bloody tyrant, Genghis was also forward thinking. His empire had the first international postal system, invented the concept of diplomatic immunity, and even allowed women in its councils. But more importantly, the Mongols were also unprecedented in their religious tolerance. ~ James Rollins

For religion to truly become an aid to humanity as a whole, every human being must make sincere efforts to break down the dogmatic barriers among different religions constructed by the pathologically ill and dangerous fundamentalists. ~ Abhijit Naskar

It can be helpful to think of humanity like a pearl necklace. Each human being is a pearl with distinct characteristics, but underneath there is a string that ties us all together, invisible to the naked eye. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

I come of Quaker stock. My ancestors were persecuted for their beliefs. Here they sought and found religious freedom. By blood and conviction I stand for religious tolerance both in act and in spirit. ~ Herbert Hoover

Religious tolerance. No! Zero tolerance for any type of religion. ~ Doug Stanhope

Science is never rigid, it is flexible. It can bend towards any direction that ultimately tends to do good to humanity. Religion must learn the same. And the moment any religion learns that, it would become the most scientific religion in the world. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. ~ Ronald Reagan

We have gone a long way toward civilization and religious tolerance, and we have a good example in this country. Here the many Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church do not seek to destroy one another in physical violence just because they do not interpret every verse of the Bible in exactly the same way. Here we now have the freedom of all religions, and I hope that never again will we have a repetition of religious bigotry, as we have had in certain periods of our own history. There is no room for that kind of foolishness here. ~ Harry S. Truman

He had heard especially promising things about Philadelphia
the lively capital of that young nation. It was said to be a city with a good-enough shipping port, central to the eastern coast of the country, filled with pragmatic Quakers, pharmacists, and hardworking farmers. It was rumored to be a place without haughty aristocrats (unlike Boston), and without pleasure-fearing puritans (unlike Connecticut), and without troublesome self-minted feudal princes (unlike Virginia). The city had been founded on the sound principles of religious tolerance, a free press, and good landscaping, by William Penn
a man who grew tree saplings in bathtubs, and who had imagined his metropolis as a great nursery of both plants and ideas. Everyone was welcome in Philadelphia, absolutely everyone
except, of course, the Jews. Hearing all this, Henry suspected Philadelphia to be a vast landscape of unrealized profits, and he aimed to turn the place to his advantage. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

When you move to a new environment with cultural and social characteristics different from your own, it is only logical, that you loosen some of the knots of your religious doctrines, to embrace the new and vivid environment as much as you wish to be embraced by the environment. ~ Abhijit Naskar

In the U.S., diversity is a politically correct slogan. In India, it is a historical fact. Much as we in the West may resent it, India has a lot to teach us when it comes to religious tolerance. ~ Gary Weiss

Tolerance is not a synonym of Weakness ~ Satyendra Singh 'Shyamal'

More and more people care about religious tolerance as fewer and fewer care about religion. ~ Alexander Chase

But it is only a mature society which can possess intellectual and religious tolerance, and which can provide basic liberties to its citizens. ~ Pervez Hoodbhoy

Be wary of any man who is quick to put down another man's faith. His love for Truth is not deep enough for him to want to explore additional truths outside his borders. The language of light can only be decoded by the heart. Thus, a man with a closed heart is already blind to understand the words of his own faith. ~ Suzy Kassem

Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, "simpler" time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. But these days when more than half the people in the country can't read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them. Jarret ~ Octavia E. Butler

What good is "Loving thy neighbor as thyself" if you don't Love thyself? ~ Donald L. Hicks

Some people like baseball, some soccer and some others like no sports at all. Their psychological orientation with sports doesn't make them any less or more human. The same is with religious orientation. The true Kingdom of God is within you, and it is defined by your behavior with other people, regardless of their religious affiliation. You are the God of your life, and your divinity lies in your actions. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Christians believe that God came amongst us as a man, do they not? Yet the Muselmen say he was only a prophet, and that God has no name ... We fight and kill each other so readily, yet if I had been born in the East, would I not believe the stories they believe, and if they had been born here, would they not be Christians? ~ David Clement-Davies

The world has always teemed with a wide variety of spiritual thought and many differing journeys of the heart. But too often the world has used these differences as a weapon. How much agony has been wrought by what should be a thing of beauty - religious passion? ~ Steve Goodier

I dream of a planet where the science of the mind, brings the Bible, the Vedas, the Quran, and all other scriptures together and binds them with the golden twine of harmony. ~ Abhijit Naskar

[ ... ] pluralism implies religious tolerance, not unchecked religious freedom. ~ Reza Aslan

Genghis Khan decreed religious tolerance for all of his conquered peoples. So I think he definitely would approve of our constitutional protections of freedom of religion. I think he would also approve of the way the U.S. has been able to attract talented people from all over the world. ~ Amy Chua

End the eternal battle of beliefs once and for all. If you are a believer, love your fellow non-believer for all the good things he or she has to offer. And if you are an atheist, then love your fellow believer for all the positivity he or she possesses. ~ Abhijit Naskar

What Does It Matter What We Believe, as long as we treat others the way we want to be treated? ~ Jeffrey A. White

Hinduism is not just a faith. It is the union of reason and intuition that can not be defined but is only to be experienced. Evil and error are not ultimate. There is no Hell, for that means there is a place where God is not, and there are sins which exceed his love. ~ Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Mormonism is the house whose walls I know best. It is the story I am not abandoning because it is the story I choose-and in many ways gas chosen me-again and again to grapple with. Mormonism is my native spiritual language and many of the threads with which my life's tapestry is woven. ~ Ashley Mae Hoiland

Men are more compassionate/(nobler)/magnanimous/generous than God; for men forgive their dead, but God does not. ~ Mark Twain

A nation established under God
A nation that will only win
if we stand together ~ April Nichole

I think that our experiences are quite often colored by our cultural and religious beliefs. ~ Rosemary Ellen Guiley

It is one thing to be eloquent and charming in profane speech, and another when the one speaking as a religious. ~ Saint Ignatius

In the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentieth, self-contained communes based on a philosophy of communal sharing sprang up throughout the United States. All of them collapsed from internal tensions, the ones guided by socialist ideology after a median of two years, the ones guided by religious ideology after a median of twenty years. ~ Steven Pinker

How to be in harmony with the cosmos? It seems that certain preliminaries are indispensable: Rid yourself of all beliefs; leave metaphysics to the sectarians of the absurd; understand that hope is fear gone bad; confront reality directly; stop upholding the romantic dream of realization; forget sentimental neurosis; play with your own limits; look at your confusion; confront life without the bric-a-brac of the religious and the spiritual - without, for all that, becoming a narrow-minded materialist who would make a new God out of rationalism; dare to be alone; do not oppose Essence against reality; give yourself over to the pleasures of pure subjectivity; understand that everything is real; and finally, one day, know exhilarating silence. ~ Daniel Odier

Winning peace means the triumph of our pledge to establish, on a democratic basis, a new social framework of tolerance and generosity from which no one will feel excluded. ~ Federico Mayor Zaragoza

God seeks to influence humanity. This is at the heart of the Christmas story. It is the story of light coming into the darkness, of a Savior to show us the way, of light overcoming the darkness, of God's work to save the world. ~ Adam Hamilton

Cease to sin, because you will not meet Allah with anything [as valuable] as few sins. ~ Aisha Bint Abi Bakr

It strikes me, my dear, that religious devotion would be somewhat out of place tonight ~ James Hogg

…We had spiritually marked ourselves. This marking began…when the counterculture of political correctness began, and the assault on Christian values and traditions began. At first it seemed so ridiculous that it was harmless, kind of like a disease to which we were all immune. Soon, however, it was recolored to equal compassion, fairness, acceptance, tolerance, and equality. From there it evolved into a power with the ability to take any truth and repaint it as a lie, to take any lie and relabel it as truth. ~ John Pontius

Since man is a moral being, his culture cannot be a-moral. Because man is a religious being, his culture, too, must be religiously oriented. ~ Henry R. Van Til

Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries
slave of prejudice ... slave of religious fanaticism ... slave of barbarity and inhumanity. ~ Saadat Hasan Manto

People who believe themselves ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. And therein lies a fascinating dichotomy. "The universe always was," gets no respect as a legitimate answer to "What was around before the beginning?" But for many religious people, the answer, "God always was," is the obvious and pleasing answer to "What was around before God? ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Like all religious people, Christians repress, remember, and retell their core stories selectively. They emphasize this episode at the expense of that episode, in keeping with their own biases and the preoccupations of their times. ~ Stephen R. Prothero

I call him religious who understands the suffering of others. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Merry Christmas! ~ Pope John Paul II

Faith, then, generically, is confidence in a personal being. Specifically, religious faith is confidence in God, in every respect and office in which He reveals Himself. As that love of which God is the object is religious love, so that confidence in Him as a Father, a Moral Governor, a Redeemer, a Sanctifier, in all the modes of His manifestation, by which we believe whatever He says because He says it, and commit ourselves and all our interests cheerfully and entirely into His hands, is religious faith. ~ Mark Hopkins

The definition of Christian art is to be found in its subject and its spirit. Everything, sacred and profane, belongs to it. God does not ask for "religious" art or "Catholic" art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth. ~ Jacques Maritain

Looking for a saviour in the sky? Be serious! Know you still not that there ain't any saviour but science! Get rid of your cultural craps and your religious illusions! Be realist! In this universe, only the realists have the chance to save themselves! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Religion is important for humanity, but it should evolve with humanity. The first priority is to establish and develop the principle of pluralism in all religious traditions. If we, the religious leaders, cultivate a sincere pluralistic attitude, then everything will be more simple. It is good that most religious leaders are at least beginning to recognize other traditions, even though they may not approve of them. The next step is to accept that the idea of propagating religion is outdated. It no longer suits the times. ~ Dalai Lama

But where should he begin? - Well, then, the trouble with the English was their:

Their:

In a word, Gibreel solemnly pronounced, their weather.

Gibreel Farishta floating on his cloud formed the opinion that the moral fuzziness of the English was meteorologically induced. 'When the day is not warmer than the night,' he reasoned, 'when the light is not brighter than the dark, when the land is not drier than the sea, then clearly a people will lose the power to make distinctions, and commence to see everything - from political parties to sexual partners to religious beliefs - as much-the-same, nothing-to-choose, give-or-take. What folly! For truth is extreme, it is so and not thus, it is him and not her; a partisan matter, not a spectator sport. It is, in brief, heated. City,' he cried, and his voice rolled over the metropolis like thunder, 'I am going to tropicalize you.'

Gibreel enumerated the benefits of the proposed metamorphosis of London into a tropical city: increased moral definition, institution of a national siesta, development of vivid and expansive patterns of behaviour among the populace, higher-quality popular music, new birds in the trees (macaws, peacocks, cockatoos), new trees under the birds (coco-palms, tamarind, banyans with hanging beards). Improved street-life, outrageously coloured flowers (magenta, vermilion, neon-green), spider-monkeys in the oaks. A new mass market for domestic air-conditioning units, ceiling ~ Salman Rushdie

When the power, prestige, and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain. ~ Hugo Black

In the act of balancing, we come alive. Sensations change moment by moment; sometimes we feel secure, sometimes precarious. In the long run we develop tolerance for instability. As we come to accept this insecurity as the norm, as our home ground, it becomes familiar and less frightening. We can stop trying to flee from the wobble. And sometimes this sense of being off balance is exhilarating and reminds us of the impermanence and fragility of life, nudging us to appreciate each imperfect, teetering moment we are alive. Perhaps, like surfers, we can come to feel the power of the waves, the majesty of the elements, and a sense of our own place in this swirling universe. ~ Patricia Ryan Madson

Religious leaders could play a significant role in making explicit the connections between current concerns for the environment and age-old teachings about our dependence on the natural world, and the dangers of greed and excess ~ Ian Christie

Prayer, Holy communication with God ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The profound danger is that, as noted above, we start to think of feeling as weakness. With the exception of anger (which is a secondary emotion, one that only serves as a socially acceptable mask for many of the more difficult underlying emotions we feel), we're losing our tolerance for emotion and hence for vulnerability. ~ Brene Brown

Another factor: Christianity offered opportunities for advancement in the church to intelligent young men, some of whom might otherwise have become mathematicians or scientists. Bishops and presbyters were generally exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary civil courts, and from taxation. A bishop such as Cyril of Alexandria or Ambrose of Milan could exercise considerable political power, much more than a scholar at the Museum in Alexandria or the Academy in Athens. This was something new. Under paganism religious offices had gone to men of wealth or political power, rather than wealth and power going to men of religion. For instance, Julius Caesar and his successors won the office of supreme pontiff, not as a recognition of piety or learning, but as a consequence of their political power. ~ Steven Weinberg

Mutual tolerance between two or more females is the first step towards sociality. ~ Paul Michener

Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society. Marriage cannot be cut off from its cultural, religious, and natural roots without weakening this good influence on society. Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all. ~ George W. Bush

Various philosophers and religious leaders tried to convince their disciples and followers that animals are nothing more than machines without a soul, without feelings. However, anyone who has ever lived with an animal-be it a dog, a bird, or even a mouse-knows that this theory is a brazen lie, invented to justify cruelty. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

Religions are moral exoskeletons. If you live in a religious community, you are enmeshed in a set of norms, relationships, and institutions that work primarily on the elephant to influence your behavior. But if you are an atheist living in a looser community with a less binding moral matrix, you might have to rely somewhat more on an internal moral compass, read by the rider. That might sound appealing to rationalists, but it is also a recipe for anomie - Durkheim's word for what happens to a society that no longer has a shared moral order.63 (It means, literally, "normlessness.") We evolved to live, trade, and trust within shared moral matrices. When societies lose their grip on individuals, allowing all to do as they please, the result is often a decrease in happiness and an increase in suicide, as Durkheim showed more than a hundred years ago. ~ Jonathan Haidt

The best perfection of a religious man is to do common things in a perfect manner. A constant fidelity in small things is a great and heroic virtue. ~ Bonaventure

Once upon a time, one looked to society
or class, or community
for one's normative vocabulary: what was good for everyone was by definition good for anyone. But the converse does not hold. What is good for one person may or may not be of value or interest to another. Conservative philosophers of an earlier age understood this well, which was why they resorted to religious language and imagery to justify traditional authority and its claims upon each individual.
But the individualism of the new Left respected neither collective purpose nor traditional authority: it was, after all, both new and left. What remained to it was the subjectivism of private
and privately-measured
interest and desire. This, in turn, invited a resort to aesthetic and moral relativism: if something is good for me it is not incumbent upon me to ascertain whether it is good for someone else
much less to impose it upon them ("do your own thing"). ~ Tony Judt

A lot of religious texts make for good reading. That's why they hold up. ~ Cass McCombs

The virtue of tolerance is relatively new to political debate; Aristotle did not discuss it. From the way the debate is usually framed, however, one gets the impression that all one has to do to achieve tolerance is to avoid the vice of narrowminded repressiveness. On the contrary, like other virtues, tolerance is opposed by not one vice but two, with grave dangers in each direction.5 The diagram should look not like this: Intolerance Tolerance but like this: Narrowminded Repressiveness - Tolerance - Soft-headed Indulgence ~ J. Budziszewski

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death. ~ Albert Einstein