quotations about religion
Since it is no longer permissible to disparage any single faith or creed, let us start disparaging all of them. To be clear: an ideology is a belief system with an inadequate basis in reality; a religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatever. Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful. It is straightforward -- and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if He cared for humankind, He would never have given us religion.
MARTIN AMIS
"The Voice of the Lonely Crowd", The Guardian, June 1, 2002
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy: the mad daughter of a wise mother.
VOLTAIRE
Voltaire: Selections
Religion can only change when the emotions which fill it are changed; and the religion of personal fear remains nearly at the level of the savage.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch