Religion

"In the United States of America, sixty thousand (60,428) men are paid salaries to teach the Science of God and His relations to His creatures. These men contract to impart to us the knowledge which treats of the existence, character, and attributes of our Creator; His laws and government; the doctrines we are to believe and the duties we are to practice. Five thousand (5,141) of them, with the prospect of 1273 theological students to help them in time, teach this science according to a formula prescribed by the Bishop of Rome, to five million people. Fifty-five thousand (55,287) local and traveling ministers, representing fifteen different denominations, each contradicting the other upon more or less vital theological questions, instruct, in their respective doctrines, thirty-three million (33,500,000) other persons... These figures are copied from the "Religious Statistics of the United States for the year 1871."

"A knowledge of reincarnation would also be helpful. But existing conditions of government and religion severely impede the development of such responsibility."

"In short, in whatever light we view religion, it appears solemn and venerable. It is a temple full of Majesty, to which the worshiper may approach with comfort, in the hope of obtaining grace and finding mercy; but where they cannot enter without being inspired with awe. If we may be permitted to compare spiritual with natural things, religion resembles not those scenes of natural beauty where every object smiles. It cannot be likened to the gay landscape or the flowery field. It resembles more the august and sublime appearances of Nature; the lofty mountain, the expanded ocean, and the starry firmament; at the sight of which the mind is at once overawed and delighted; and, from the union of grandeur with beauty, derives a pleasing but a serious emotion."

"The spirit of true religion breathes gentleness and affability; it gives a native, unaffected ease to the behavior. It is social, kind, cheerful; far removed from the cloudy and illiberal superstition which clouds the brow, sharpens the temper, and dejects the spirit."

"The loss of religion has shaken the movement forward. Without God there is no path. Call Him what one will, the highest Hierarchic Principle must be observed, otherwise there is nothing to adhere to. Thus, one must understand how the upward aspiration of people's wills surrounds the planet like a protective net."

"There is a strange idea prevalent that by merely teaching the dogmas of religion children can be made pious and moral. This is an European error, and its practice either leads to mechanical acceptance of a creed having no effect on the inner and little on the outer life, or it creates the fanatic, the pietist, the ritualist or the unctuous hypocrite. Religion has to be lived, not learned as a creed."

"The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and religions."

"I went to the Garden of Love And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green.And The Gates of this Chapel were shut, And "Thou Shalt Not" writ over the door... And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys & desires."

"Because religion is such an opinion-based topic, I had better lay my own cards on the table. I was raised a Catholic and was a strong believer until age 21. After searching other religions I became a “None,”and then an agnostic--believing one cannot say at this point whether the universe had a creator, and if so what that creator’s qualities might be (beyond the all-time highest score on the SAT-Math test). I have enough familiarity with religion that I can pass as a scholar among people who know nothing about the subject. Similarly, I know enough of the Bible to seem well informed in a room of people who have never opened the book. I don’t think any of this has affected the answers people have given to my surveys, which is what this chapter is about. But as always, you will be the judge of that."

"Comparative Religionists consider, on the other hand, that all religions originate from the teachings of Divine Men, who give out to the different nations of the world, from time to time, such parts of the fundamental verities of religion as the people are capable of receiving, teaching ever the same morality... "Religions are branches from a common trunk—Divine Wisdom.""

"Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable."

"Religions have been basis of the tyranny of kings and sultans."

"A narrow religion, a sectarian religion, an exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose."

"Comparative Mythologists contend that the common origin is the common ignorance, and that the loftiest religious doctrines are simply refined expressions of the crude and barbarous guesses of savages, of primitive men, regarding themselves and their surroundings.... A Kṛiṣhṇa, a Buddha, a Lao-tze, a Jesus, are the highly civilised but lineal descendants of the whirling medicine-man of the savage... And so forth. It is all summed up in the phrase: Religions are branches from a common trunk—human ignorance. p. 8"

"A l’erreur opposons la vérité, à la foi l’évidence, la science aux religions. Les propagandistes religieux ne font connaître aux enfants qu’une seule doctrine. Faisons-leur connaître toutes les doctrines, non seulement dans leur état actuel, mais dans leur genèse et dans leur développement. Instruisons-les des ressemblances et des analogies qu’elles ont entre elles, et aussi des ressemblances et des analogies qu’ont entre eux leurs fondateurs et leurs propagateurs. Puis laissons-les libres de choisir entre les hypothèses, et si aucune des anciennes ne les satisfait, libres d’en imaginer de nouvelles."

"In a rational religion there is no perplexity."

"There has been a useful and wholesome swing away from Churchianity and from orthodox religion during the past century, and this will present a unique opportunity for the restoration of true religion and the presentation of a simple return to the ways of spiritual living."

"What is the object of religions? They are given to the world by men wiser than the masses of the people on whom they are bestowed, and are intended to quicken human evolution. In order to do this effectively they must reach individuals and influence them. Now all men are not at the same level of evolution, but evolution might be figured as a rising gradient, with men stationed on it at every point. The most highly evolved are far above the least evolved, both in intelligence and character... Yet all the types need religion, so that each may reach upward to a life higher than that which he is leading, and no type or grade should be sacrificed to any other. Religion must be as graduated as evolution, else it fails in its object. p. 5"

"It is useful to teach about immortality in the schools. Religion that teaches about death will pass away, as will all those who believe in death."

"The British finally seem to have taken to heart words attributed to an anonymous British elder statesman in the 19th century: We must preserve the Church of England. It's our only defense against real religion."

"In primitive religions the fear of God was taught first of all. Thus was suggested a feeling which usually ends in rebellion. Certainly, each one who contacts the Higher World experiences a trembling, but this unavoidable sensation has nothing in common with fear. Fear is cessation of creative energy. Fear is ossification and submission to darkness. Whereas turning to the Higher World must evoke ecstasy and expansion of one’s forces for the expression of the beautiful. Such qualities are born not of fear but through love. Therefore higher religion teaches not fear but love. Only by such a path can people become attached to the Higher World."

"How much hatred and stupidity men succeed in packing up decorously and labelling “Religion”?"

"Research has indisputably proved that the religions of the world are markedly similar in their main teachings, in their possession of Founders who display superhuman powers and extraordinary moral elevation, in their ethical precepts, in their use of means to come into touch with invisible worlds, and in the symbols by which they express their leading beliefs. This similarity, amounting in many cases to identity, proves... a common origin."

"Capitalism is presumably the first case of a blaming, rather than a repenting cult. ... An enormous feeling of guilt not itself knowing how to repent, grasps at the cult, not in order to repent for this guilt, but to make it universal, to hammer it into consciousness and finally and above all to include God himself in this guilt."

"Today's secularists too often have very little accurate knowledge about religion, and even less desire to learn. This is problematic insofar as their sense of self is constructed in opposition to religion. Above all, the secularist is not a Jew, is not a Christian, not a Muslim, and so on. But is it intellectually responsible to define one's identity against something that one does not understand?"

"Arrogance and fanatical belief had become a racial trait. The galaxy belonged to them, having been fashioned for them by their God, so everything belonged to them, and they could do with it what they wanted, and what they wanted usually involved subjugation, destruction, and death. Religion, a vicious and hearty meme at best, usually collapsed as civilizations became spacefaring, for most such belief systems, initiated when the world was still flat and thunder was the bellowing of gods, usually could not survive the realities of the universe and the steady abrasion of science."

"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today."

"A religion may be discerned in capitalism—that is to say, capitalism serves essentially to allay the same anxieties, torments, and disturbances to which the so-called religions offered answers."

"Religio peperit divitias et filia devoravit matrem."

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

"The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself."

"Men use religion just as they use buoys and life-preservers; they do not intend to navigate the vessel with them, but they keep just enough of them on hand to float into a safe harbor when a storm comes up and the vessel is shipwrecked; and it is only then that they intend to use them. I tell you, you will find air-holes in all such life-preservers as that."

"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 epiphenomenona of any religion's foundation are the production and flourishment of hypocrisy, megalomania and psychopathy, and the first casualties of a religion's establishment are the intentions of its founder."

"Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye Forever doth accompany mankind, Hath look'd on no religion scornfully That men did ever find."

"Religion is, by definition, interpretation; and by definition, all interpretations are valid. However, some interpretations are more reasonable than others."

"By religion I do not mean outward things, but inward states, I mean perfected manhood. I mean the quickening of the soul by the beatific influence of the divine Spirit in truth, and love, and sympathy, and confidence, and trust."

"All religions, with their gods, demigods, prophets, messiahs and saints, are the product of the fancy and credulity of men who have not yet reached the full development and complete possession of their intellectual powers."

"The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters." It's an oral history. It was passed down, word-of-mouth, father to son, from Adam to Seth, from Seth to Enos, from Enos to Cainan, for 40 generations, a growing, changing, story, it was handed down, word-of-mouth, father to son. Until Moses finally gets it down on lambskin. But lambskins wear out, and need to be recopied. Copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of an oral history passed down through 40 generations. From Hebrew it's translated into Arabic, from Arabic to Latin, from Latin to Greek, from Greek to Russian, from Russian to German, from German to an old form of English that you could not read. Through 400 years of evolution of the English language to the book we have today, which is: a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of an oral history passed down through 40 generations. You can't put a grocery list through that many translations, copies, and re-telling, and not expect to have some big changes in the dinner menu when the kids make it back from Kroger's. And yet people are killing each other over this written word. Here's a tip: If you're killing someone in the name of God — you're missing the message."

"The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires."

"Religion is the name, surely, which we give to the invocative appeal of humanity which leads to the evocative response of the Spirit of God. This Spirit works in every human heart and in all groups."

"One's religion is whatever he is most interested in."

"Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out,"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion the world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite society, I mean Hell."

"In human life, you will find players of religion until the knowledge and proficiency in religion will be cleansed from all superstitions, and will be purified and perfected by the enlightenment of real science."

"In the past, the keynote of the Christian religion has been death, symbolised for us in the death of Christ and much distorted by St. Paul in his effort to blend the new religion which Christ brought with the old blood religion of the Jews. In the cycle which Christ will inaugurate after His reappearance, the goal of all the religious teaching in the world will be the resurrection of the spirit in mankind; the emphasis will be upon the livingness of the Christ nature in every human being, and upon the use of the will in bringing about this living transfiguration of the lower nature."

"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."

"Myth, religion and now science-fiction with their tales of benevolent and malevolent extraterrestrial beings are commentaries on the human condition."

"The Divine Wisdom, the true Theosophy... is not, as some think, a diluted version of Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Taoism, or of any special religion. It is Esoteric Christianity as truly as it is Esoteric Buddhism, and belongs equally to all religions, exclusively to none. Foreword"

"Religions have frightened humanity with their dogma of final judgment, and have thereby deprived it of daring... Can one accept on faith the decisions of strangers who take fees for communing with heaven?"