Religion

"Religion gives to virtue the sweetest hopes, to unrepenting vice just alarms, to true repentance the most powerful consolations; but she endeavors above all things to inspire in men love, meekness, and piety."

"Too much is said in these days about the aesthetics of religion and its sensibilities. Religion's home is in the conscience. Its watchword is the word "ought." Its highest joy is in doing God's will."

"Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith; its action, works; its temper, holiness; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self, and benevolence to men."

"All noblest things are religious,— not temples and martyrdoms only, but the best books, pictures, poetry, statues, and music."

"True religion is not what men see and admire; it is what God sees and loves; the faith which clings to Jesus in the darkest hour; the sanctity which shrinks from the approach of evil; the humility which lies low at the feet of the Redeemer, and washes them with tears; the love which welcomes every sacrifice; the cheerful consecration of all the powers of the soul; the worship which, rising above all outward forms, ascends to God in the sweetest, dearest communion — a worship often too deep for utterance, and than which the highest heaven knows nothing more sublime."

"Go tell that long tongue liar Go and tell that midnight rider Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down"

"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned."

"The rigid saint, by whom no mercy's shown To saints whose lives are better than his own, Shall spare thy crimes; and Wit, who never once Forgave a brother, shall forgive a dunce."

"Some people complain because God put thorns on roses, while others praise Him for putting roses among thorns."

"The God of the Unitarians is a bachelor; the Deity of the Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, and the other orthodox Protestant sects a spouseless Father with one Son, who is identical with Himself. In the attempt to outvie each other in the erection of their sixty-two thousand and odd churches, prayer-houses, and meeting-halls, in which to teach these conflicting theological doctrines, $354,485,581 have been spent. The value of the Protestant parsonages alone, in which are sheltered the disputants and their families, is roughly calculated to approximate $54,115,297... One Presbyterian church in New York cost a round million; a Catholic altar alone, one-fourth as much!... And now, with Pilate, let us inquire, What is truth? Where is it to be searched for amid this multitude of warring sects? Each claims to be based upon divine revelation, and each to have the keys of the celestial gates. Is either in possession of this rare truth?... These figures are copied from the "Religious Statistics of the United States for the year 1871."

"You have no security for a man who has no religious principle."

"You have respect for religion! How vastly condescending! How deeply humble! The creature has a respect for the service of the Creator! A grasshopper deigns to acknowledge that it has a respect for the King of kings and Lord of lords! Verily a subject of congratulation for the universe! A worm crawling in the dust confesses to its fellow worm that it has some respect for the government of the high and mighty One that inhabiteth eternity."

"The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and in imitation of His perfections."

"Religion's all. Descending from the skies To wretched man, the goddess in her left Holds out this world, and, in her right, the next."

"But if man loses all, when life is lost, He lives a coward, or a fool expires. A daring infidel (and such there are, From pride, example, lucre, rage, revenge, Or pure heroical defect of thought), Of all earth's madmen, most deserves a chain."

"The gods of all pagan faiths have been allied with the rich rulers. The priests of most religions are the employees of the landowners. But the God of Israel has always claimed to be with the poor—whether in the legislation of Deuteronomy, the words of the prophets, or the experiences of the New Testament. Our God is on the side of the poor."

"Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey..."

"The Discordian Society, we repeat again, is not a complicated joke disguised as a new religion but really a new religion disguised as a complicated joke."

"And then there’s religion—God, angels, sin—but none of that has ever appealed to me. Fiction masquerading as cosmology is what it feels like to me, and all too self-important, too self-serious."

"Such religion as there can be in modern life, every individual will have to salvage from the churches for himself."

"Who God doth late and early pray More of his Grace than Gifts to lend; And entertains the harmless day With a Religious Book or Friend."

"The world has a thousand creeds, and never a one have I; Nor church of my own, though a million spires are pointing the way on high. But I float on the bosom of faith, that bears me along like a river; And the lamp of my soul is alight with love, for life, and the world, and the Giver."

"So many gods, so many creeds— So many paths that wind and wind While just the art of being kind Is all the sad world needs."

"A legal religion is insufficient to bring the soul into harmony with God."

"All your Western theologies, the whole mythologies of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent…"

"Take care what you are about, for unless you base all this on religion, you are only making so many clever devils."

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. Far from being rivals or enemies religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistance. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."

"I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it. All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth."

"The religion of the heathen mythology not only was not true, but was not even supported as true; it not only deserved no belief, but it demanded none. The very pretension to truth—the very demand of faith—were characteristic distinctions of Christianity."

"The more a religion is aware of its opposition in principle to economic rationalization as such, the more apt are the religion’s virtuosi to reject the world, especially its economic activities."

"Legitimation by a recognized religion has always been decisive for an alliance between politically and socially dominant classes and the priesthood. Integration into the Hindu community provided such religious legitimation for the ruling stratum. It not only endowed the ruling stratum of the barbarians with recognized rank in the cultural world of Hinduism, but, through their transformation into castes, secured their superiority over the subject classes with an efficiency unsurpassed by any other religion."

"It is above all the impersonal and economically rationalized (but for this very reason ethically irrational) character of purely commercial relationships that evokes the suspicion, never clearly expressed but all the more strongly felt, of ethical religions."

"Religion is the tie that connects man with his Creator, and holds him to His throne."

"Reinhold Niebuhr is a man of God, but a man of the world as well. Dr. Niebuhr would seem to be saying that if a nation would survive and remain free, its citizens must use religion as a source of self-criticism, not as a source of self-righteousness."

"There’s a religious fervour spreading like clap in a cathouse. It’s screwing the world’s brains."

"Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong. ... With those who have received a Christian education, the lower parts of the soul become attached to these mysteries when they have no right at all to do so. That is why such people need a purification of which St. John of the Cross describes the stages. Atheism and incredulity constitute an equivalent of such a purification."

"When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes."

"“It occurs to me that the man and his religion are one and the same thing. The unknown exists. Each man projects on the blankness the shape of his own particular world-view. He endows his creation with his personal volitions and attitudes. The religious man stating his case is in essence explaining himself. When a fanatic is contradicted he feels a threat to his own existence; he reacts violently.” “Interesting!” declared the fat merchant. “And the atheist?” “He projects no image upon the blank whatever. The cosmic mysteries he accepts as things in themselves; he feels no need to hang a more or less human mask upon them. Otherwise, the correlation between a man and the shape into which he molds the unknown for greater ease of manipulation is exact.”"

"Reverend Lovejoy: Ned, have you considered any of the other major religions? They're all pretty much the same."

"None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much."

"To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion."

"Once I journeyd far from home To the gate of holy Rome; There the Pope, for my offence, Bade me straight, in penance, thence Wandering onward, to attain The wondrous land that height Cokaigne."

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

"Music is the only religion that delivers the goods."

"In religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire."

"If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe."

"If we look more deeply into humanity’s ancient religions and spiritual traditions, we will find that underneath the many surface differences there are two core insights that most of them agree on. The words they use to describe those insights differ, yet they all point to a twofold fundamental truth. The first part of this truth is the realization that the “normal” state of mind of most human beings contains a strong element of what we might call dysfunction or even madness. Certain teachings at the heart of Hinduism perhaps come closest to seeing this dysfunction as a form of collective mental illness. They call it maya, the veil of delusion.Ramana Maharshi, one of the greatest Indian sages, bluntly states: The mind is maya. Buddhism uses different terms. According to the Buddha, the human mind in its normal state generates dukkha, which can be translated as suffering, unsatisfactoriness, or just plain misery. He sees it as a characteristic of the human condition. Wherever you go, whatever you do, says the Buddha, you will encounter dukkha, and it will manifest in every situation sooner or later. According to Christian teachings, the normal collective state of humanity is one of “original sin.” Sin is a word that has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted... It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering. Again, the term, stripped of its cultural baggage and misinterpretations, points to the dysfunction inherent in the human condition."

"If our religions aren't about the business of achieving justice in our time, in this world, for everyone, what are they doing?"

"The Arising New Consciousness. Most ancient religions and spiritual traditions share the common insight – that our “normal” state of mind is marred by a fundamental defect. However, out of this insight into the nature of the human condition – we may call it the bad news – arises a second insight: the good news of the possibility of a radical transformation of human consciousness. In Hindu teachings (and sometimes in Buddhism also), this transformation is called enlightenment. In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, and in Buddhism, it is the end of suffering. Liberation and awakening are other terms used to describe this transformation."

"Nec religionis est cogere religionem."