Religion Quotes

The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

~ Carl Sagan

But, first, remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.

~ C.s. Lewis

[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company.

~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is the belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

~ Richard Dawkins

The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization.

~ Robert Anton Wilson

Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

~ Robert A. Heinlein

To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries

~ Richard Dawkins

The minute you get a religion you stop thinking. Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.

~ Ray Bradbury

Oh, Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good!

~ C.s. Lewis

I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.

~ Martin Luther

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.

~ George Bernard Shaw

People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction.

~ Umberto Eco

Religion is for people who're afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who've already been there.

~ Vine Deloria Jr.

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

~ Isaac Asimov

An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said.An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.

~ Madalyn Murray O'hair

There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.

~ Stephen Hawking

Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.

~ Isaac Newton

I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same fifty percent rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don't...Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe...same as the voodoo lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles. It's all the same...so just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself...

~ George Carlin

Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The thought manifests the word;The word manifests the deed;The deed develops into habit;And habit hardens into character;So watch the thought and its ways with care,And let them spring forth from loveBorn out of compassion for all beings.As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.

~ Juan Mascaró

I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly.

~ Voltairine De Cleyre

One of the greatest tragedies in mankind's entire history may be that morality was hijacked by religion.

~ Arthur C. Clarke

Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.

~ Abigail Adams

The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, that my friends, that is true perversion!

~ Harvey Milk

The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation.

~ Emma Goldman

One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.

~ Thomas Paine

The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.

~ Jay Leno

There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages.

~ Ruth Hurmence Green

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

~ Stephen Roberts

If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.

~ Thomas Carlyle

On the Disc, the Gods aren't so much worshipped, as they are blamed.

~ Terry Pratchett

It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.

~ Sam Harris

The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.

~ Abraham Lincoln

Professor Langdon,' called a young man with curly hair in the back row, 'if Masonry is not a secret society, not a corporation, and not a religion, then what is it?''Well, if you were to ask a Mason, he would offer the following definition: Masonry is a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.''Sounds to me like a euphemism for freaky cult. ''Freaky, you say?''Hell yes!' the kid said, standing up. 'I heard what they do inside those secret buildings! Weird candlelight rituals with coffins, and nooses, and drinking wine out of skulls. Now that's freaky!'Langdon scanned the class. 'Does that sound freaky to anyone else?''Yes!' they all chimed in.Langdon feigned a sad sigh. 'Too bad. If that's too freaky for you, then I know you'll never want to join my cult.'Silence settled over the room. The student from the Women's Center looked uneasy. 'You're in a cult?'Langdon nodded and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'Don't tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god Ra, I kneel at the foot of an ancient instrument of torture and consume ritualistic symbols of blood and flesh.'The class looked horrified.Langdon shrugged. 'And if any of you care to join me, come to the Harvard chapel on Sunday, kneel beneath the crucifix, and take Holy Communion.'The classroom remained silent.Langdon winked. 'Open your minds, my friends. We all fear what we do not understand.

~ Dan Brown

Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither.

~ C.s. Lewis

Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!

~ Douglas Adams

I don't pray because it doesn't work. Prayer doesn't fix anything. Bad things happen anyway.

~ Nicholas Sparks

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

~ Mark Twain

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that.

~ Richard Dawkins

Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.

~ Jules Verne