Religion

"An Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange For Deity offended!"

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

"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."

"G__ knows I'm no the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be, But twenty times I rather would be An atheist clean, Than under gospel colours hid be, Just for a screen."

"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 capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed."

"Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child."

"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."

"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."

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

"The objects of philosophy, it is true, are upon the whole the same as those of religion. In both the object is Truth, in that supreme sense in which God and God only is the Truth."

"All religions look equally silly from the outside."

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

"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."

"Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent."

"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."

"People differ in their discourse and profession about these matters, but men of sense are really but of one religion. — "What religion?" — the Earl said, "Men of sense never tell it.""

"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."

"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..."

"All Faith is false, all Faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strewen In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own."

"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics."

"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."

"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 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, therefore, is the answer to that cry of Reason which nothing can silence, that aspiration of the soul which no created thing can meet, that want of the heart which all creation cannot supply."

"There is no use disguising the fact, our religious needs are the deepest. There is no peace until they are satisfied and contented. The attempt to stifle them is in vain. If their cry be drowned by the noise of the world, they do not cease to exist. In some unexpected moment they will break through with redoubled energy. They must be answered."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Our love, when it is without counting the cost, leads the other toward God. Our love makes straight the paths of the Lord."

"It is the very nature and essence of religion to raise men, peoples, and nations, above the common level of life, to break through its ordinary bounds, and express itself in a thousand ways, in poetry, painting, music, sculpture, and in every other form of ideal expression. The splendid monuments of the genius and greatness of by-gone ages are the monuments inspired by their religion."

"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."

"While the U.S. was founded on basic freedoms, including the freedom of religion, there is a distinction between belief and conduct. One can believe whatever one wishes; however, one cannot practice a belief if such practice violates a valid law."

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

"One religion is as true as another."

"Religion is not a perpetual moping over good books. Religion is not even prayer, praise, holy ordinances — these are necessary to religion — no man can be religious without them. But religion, I repeat, is, mainly and chiefly the glorifying God amid the duties and trials of the world; the guiding of our course amid adverse winds and currents of temptation by the star-light of duty and the compass of divine truth, the bearing up manfully, wisely, courageously, for the honor of Christ, our great Leader, in the conflict of life."

"A little is fine, but the minute you start believing that you've picked the only right one out of the 4,200 or so on offer, you need to get a grip on yourself. Once you start thinking that it's okay to hate someone that chose one of the 4,199 others... snap out of it."

"“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.”"

"Science embraces facts and debates opinion; religion embraces opinion and debates the facts."

"History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it."

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

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

"I realized that ritual will always mean throwing away something; Destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods."

"And indeed, no man has found his religion until he has found that for which he must sell his goods and his life."

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

"It was after the time of Origen’s disciples that the false religion of the priesthood began to spread."

"People believe they can attain perfection by many methods. This multiplicity of mirages lulls the mediocre mind. But one really has only two ways to live: either wisely and ardently to seek the realization of Aum, or to lie in a coffin like a log — self-centered and impoverished in spirit — assuming that one's destiny will be taken care of by something or someone else. It would seem, then, that a true striving toward realization of supreme possibilities should fill the greater part of human life as a most essential and engrossing occupation. But in reality the light of knowledge has been replaced by the conventional dogma of religion; and man, meant to be a thinker, worships his dark corner of idols, hanging amulets upon himself without even understanding the meaning of their symbols. Repeat this to all those who sleep in the darkness of the ordinary."

"The primary concern of religion should be to provide a practical solution of life. The heavenly reward is too remote; the return should be brought within the earthly span. People can now understand as universally accessible the miracle of the renewal of possibilities. Hence, either the hand of the Invisible Friend or a sharp sword. And, remembering the advantage of immediate remuneration, people will find a new path to the Temple. There is no need to implore Divinity. One should bring to oneself the best deed."