Traditonal Religion Quotes

The old-time-religion and today's cutting-edge-religion have one thing in common - they're both religion. I want neither.
~ Steve McVey

In every serious doctrine of the destiny of men, there is some trace of the doctrine of the equality of men. But the capitalist really depends on some religion of inequality. The capitalist must somehow distinguish himself from human kind; he must be obviously above it or he would be obviously below it. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Dear Pope, send me some hope or a rope. ~ Lou Reed

Those nations that say it's a crime to preach your religion are making a terrible mistake. All they're doing is driving underground other forms of spiritual intuitions and practices. ~ Wole Soyinka

In Russia, the person who put Sevastopol on the literary map was Leo Tolstoy, a veteran of the siege. His fictionalized memoir The Sebastopol Sketches made him a national celebrity. Already with the first installment of the work published, Tsar Alexander II saw the propaganda value of the piece and ordered it translated into French for dissemination abroad. That made the young author very happy. Compared with Tolstoy's later novels, The Sebastopol Sketches hasn't aged well, possibly because this is not a heartfelt book. As the twenty-six-year-old Tolstoy's Sevastopol diaries reveal, not heartache but ambition drove him at the time. Making a name as an author was just an alternative to two other grand plans - founding a new religion and creating a mathematical model for winning in cards (his losses during the siege were massive even for a rich person). ~ Constantine Pleshakov

We Americans can be rightly proud of the fact that the right to the free and unfettered exercise of religion is a primary principle in the vision and founding of our country. It defines us as a people, and has uniquely contributed to making this nation great. ~ Salvatore J. Cordileone

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth. ~ Voltaire

Religion without science is superstition. Science without religion is materialism. ~ Bahaullah

Regarding 'Jabez's Prayer', I will say at once that I am a very poor Christian, and indeed a bad man. My besetting sins are many, and the least of them are the fleshlier ones: the really deadly ones are pride and intellectual arrogance. But I can honestly say I have never sunk to confusing prayer: the soul's colloquy with the Creator, mortal man's dialogue with the Deity: with magical incantation and the ritual of the 'spell. ~ Markham Shaw Pyle

Actresses require protection in their art from blind abuse, from savage criticism. Their work is their religion, if they are seeking the best in their art, and to abuse that faith is to rob them, to dishonor them. ~ Nance O'Neil

The church doctrines of obedience to authority, repentance, fear of punishment, self-abnegation, acceptance of outer direction rather than inner assurance, elevation of faith over reason, and intolerance make institutionalized religion an ideal instrument of social constraint. ~ Madalyn Murray O'Hair

The Age of Reason was responsible for making more people into infidels than any other book except the Bible. ~ Gordon Stein

It just seems helpful to admit that Christianity is as complicated and conflicted as any other religion, with groups of followers who can believe in the unity of their faith even as they refuse Communion to one another. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

A basic reality of life is that we all struggle. We hurt and have hurt other people. We all feel lost sometimes.
This isn't all we are, but it is a part of who we are. The only question I have when I'm with someone is, Can they admit it? And will they let me admit it too? ~ Anna White

I am an atheist, but I would never call myself a nonbeliever. I believe in higher powers inside people that can only be activated in a society designed to bring them out. My belief in these powers is so strong that I have organized my life around them, despite the fact that I cannot prove their existence. ~ Danny Katch

All the religions have deviated from its roots, and the main thing was that you must have your Realization, you must have your Spirit. Once you become the Spirit then you understand the religion. ~ Nirmala Srivastava

There's nothing mysterious about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain? ~ Joseph Heller

If there's one thing I can't abide it's fanatics of any kind, and religious ones are the worst of all. ~ Michael Morpurgo

Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason. ~ Martin Luther

No one should be hurt in the slightest' - such should be one's egoism. That is a 'positive' ego. ~ Dada Bhagwan

The authentic pagan has no need of religion because, whatever religion can provide, he already has it. ~ Rajneesh

There is zero evidence for god. ~ Lewis Wolpert

If you want to know whether God exists, all you have to do is define the word 'exist'. ~ Bill Gaede

If the people of this religion are asked about the proof for the soundness of their religion, they flare up, get angry and spill the blood of whoever confronts them with this question. They forbid rational speculation, and strive to kill their adversaries. This is why truth became thoroughly silenced and concealed. ~ Muhammad Ibn Zakariya Al-Razi

In Europe, where climate change absolutism is at its strongest, the quasi-religion of greenery in general and the climate change issue in particular have filled the vacuum of organised religion, with reasoned questioning of its mantras regarded as a form of blasphemy. ~ Nigel Lawson

When we see Him, we will wonder that we ever could have disobeyed Him. ~ Oswald Chambers

When one is born into a religion that is not too unsuitable for pronouncing the name of the Lord, when one loves that native religion, well-oriented and pure, it is difficult to conceive of a legitimate motive to abandon it before direct contact with God offers the soul to the divine will itself. Beyond this threshold, the change is only legitimate as an act of obedience. In fact history shows how this rarely happens. More often - perhaps always - the soul that reaches the highest spiritual regions is confirmed in the love of the tradition that served as its ladder. If the imperfection of the native religion is too great, or if it appears in a native environment under a form that is too corrupt, or if circumstances prevent that religion from being born or even kills it, the adoption of a strange religion is legitimate. Legitimate and necessary for certain people; not, without a doubt, for all. It is the same for those who have been raised without any religious practice. In all other cases, to change religions is an extremely grave (serious) decision and it is even more serious to push someone else to do so. It is still an infinitely more serious exercise, in this sense, to officially apply such pressure upon conquered lands. ~ Simone Weil

Your mom was right when she told you never to discuss politics and religion because emotions run so high in those arenas. Especially religion. ~ Bill O'Reilly

I've never voted. I've never voted yet although I could have voted for the last ten years. ~ John Lennon

Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we're atheist. Our existence is beyond our understanding. No one has an answer. ~ Anthony Hopkins

If the Old Testament were a reliable guide in the matter of capital punishment, half the people in the United States would have to be killed tomorrow. ~ Steve Allen

I would that our farmers when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when they came to thin, or letin the light to, a consecrated grove (lucum conlucare), that is, would believe that it is sacred to some god. The Roman made an expiatory offering, and prayed, Whatever god or goddess thou art to whom this grove is sacred, be propitious to me, my family, and children, etc. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Religion is the last refuge of human savagery. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

I do not judge the individual based on their belief. If I were to, then I would, undoubtedly, be no better than the (religious) system that I frown upon. ~ Travis Culliton

Science and religion stand watch over different aspects of all our major flashpoints. May they do so in peace and reinforcement--and not like the men who served as a cannon fodder in World War I, dug into the trenches of a senseless and apparently interminable conflict, while lobbing bullets and canisters of poison gas at a supposed enemy, who, like any soldier, just wanted to get off the battlefield and on with a potentially productive and rewarding life. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Science can have a purifying effect on religion, freeing it from beliefs of a pre-scientific age and helping us to a truer conception of God. At the same time, I am far from believing that science will ever give us the answers to all our questions. ~ Nevill Francis Mott

I don't think God wants to be worshiped. I think the only pure worship of God is by loving one another, and I think all other forms of worship became a substitute for the love that we should show one another. ~ Charles M. Schulz

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

Because of the failure of religion to offer satisfying answers to an increasing number of people, it's time for philosophy to address forcefully these questions that everybody is wondering about. ~ Rebecca Goldstein

Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either religion, honour, or prudence. Thosewho violate it, may be cunning, but they are not able. Lies and perfidy are the refuge of fools and cowards. ~ Lord Chesterfield

People sometimes ask me , what religion are you ? i always answer by saying, 'i am a little part of all religions and and a big part of no religion ~ Osho

What are we having this liberty for? We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality, discrimination and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

Do you think it was part of some plan, that you got shot so you would end up in that church and discover religion?' Bruce shook his head. 'I got shot because someone was willing to exchange the name of an undercover cop for a lot of cash. Ending up in church
God was just kind enough to make something come out of the disaster that hit my life. ~ Dee Henderson

His point, again and again, was that truth wasn't the property of any one faith and that, if you looked closely, you found a ground where they all converged. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ. ~ George Washington

the president began dictating what became his famous declaration of hope for "a world founded upon four essential human freedoms" - freedom of speech and expression; freedom of religion; freedom from want; and freedom from fear. These were, he said, not a vision for "a distant millennium" but "a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. ~ Douglas Brinkley

I don't believe in school prayer. I think it's total nonsense ... who is the teacher there that is going to have them pray? And is the teacher going to be Catholic or Mormon or Episcopalian or what? It just causes all sorts of problems. And what are the kids praying about anyway? Does it really matter, does praying in school ... what are you doing it for? The whole thing just opens up all sorts of elements of discussion. I think it's crazy. ~ Charles M. Schulz

Fear is a tactic to steal your hope and keep your vibration low, don't believe anything you're told. ~ Shanna Star

Metaphors for God drawn from human experience can easily be literalized. While we are immediately aware that the personal God is not really a rock or a mother eagle, it is easy enough to imagine that God is really a king or a father. ~ Sandra Marie Schneiders

Killing innocent people in the name of God is the highest insult to God. ~ Amit Ray