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This dull river has a deep religion of its own; so, let us trust, has the dullest human soul, though, perhaps, unconsciously.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, American Note-Books, Aug. 7, 1842
Behold what is in the heavens and the earth! But revelations and warnings avail not folk who will not believe.
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
JONATHAN SWIFT, Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies
Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.
EUGENE O'NEILL, The Great God Brown
Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small.
ARTHUR MILLER, The Crucible
Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
HAN SOLO, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions. Remember, they were men of God who destroyed the educational treasures at Alexandria, who perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who burned the witches at Salem. Over 25,000 organized religions flourish on this planet, but the followers of each think all the others are miserably misguided and probably evil as well.
FRANK SINATRA, Playboy Magazine, Feb. 1962
I'm for decency -- period. I'm for anything and everything that bodes love and consideration for my fellow man. But when lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday -- cash me out.
FRANK SINATRA, Playboy Magazine, Feb. 1962
Every day, people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
LENNY BRUCE, The Essential Lenny Bruce
To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.
JORGE LUIS BORGES, Labyrinths
If one wishes to form a true estimate of the full grandeur of religion, one must keep in mind what it undertakes to do for men. It gives them information about the source and origin of the universe, it assures them of protection and final happiness amid the changing vicissitudes of life, and it guides their thoughts and motions by means of precepts which are backed by the whole force of its authority.
SIGMUND FREUD, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
When people try to use religion to address the natural world, science pushes back on it, and religion has to accomodate the results. Beliefs can be permanent, but beliefs can also be flexible. Personally, if I find out my belief is wrong, I change my mind. I think that's a good way to live.
LISA RANDALL, Discover Magazine, July 2006
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy: the mad daughter of a wise mother.
All religions, with their gods, their demi-gods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the prejudiced fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN, God and the State
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance ... logic can be happily tossed out the window.
Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
SIGMUND FREUD, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish -- if a little more enlightened, religion would perish.
ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL, Some Mistakes of Moses
Religion must be a punishment, because nobody gets religion who does not have a bad conscience.
AUGUST STRINDBERG, quoted in Otto Heller's Prophets of Dissent
The Church must be intelligible to the simple as well as to the shrewd.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON, A City Set on a Hill
Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.
There are a whole lot of religious people in America, including the majority of Democrats. When we abandon the field of religious discourse—when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome—others will fill the vacuum. And those who do are likely to be those with the most insular views of faith, or who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.
BARACK OBAMA, Audacity of Hope
- How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
- In a believer's ear!
- It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
- And drives away his fear.
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
ALBERT EINSTEIN, New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930
Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
AMBROSE BIERCE, The Devil's Dictionary
It is hard for many people to give up the religion in which they were born; to admit that their fathers were utterly mistaken, and that the sacred records of their country are but collections of myths and fables.
ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL, Some Mistakes of Moses
In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable.
SIGMUND FREUD, The Future of an Illusion
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
EDMUND BURKE, letter to Wm. Smith, Jan 29, 1795
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