“Every brand of religion maintains, and is, a permanent mechanism for transmitting ideas and values - whether one regards those values as admirable or ridiculous. Secularist organizations, with their generally looser, nonhierarchical structures, lack the power to hand down and disseminate their heritage in such a systematic way.” WayIdeasHandsReligionValuesOrganizationRegardDown AndStructureRidiculousBrandsPermanentHeritageMechanismAdmirableSystematic Author:Susan Jacoby
“It is hard to think of conversion as a blinding light on the road to Damascus, or as a highly spiritual or intellectual process, when the light comes from a flickering television; the voice of the deity is Bishop Sheen and you have drilled your father on his catechism answers...I was troubled at a young age by the idea that pouring water over someone's head could change both his relationship to God.” ThinkingIdeasHardLightAgeSpiritualYoungReligionFatherProcessWomenVoiceWaterAnswersTelevisionIntellectualConversionYoung AgeDeitiesBishopsPouringCatechismBlinding Light Author:Susan Jacoby
“Religious education is only valuable intellectually, if the child is educated in a religion versus [just] about a religion. I don't believe you can have both.” IfsBelieveChildrenReligionWomenReligiousDon't BelieveValuableEducatedVersusBelieve You CanI Don't Believe YouReligious Education Author:Susan Jacoby
“Throughout the three decades preceding the Civil War, the anticlerical ethos of the radical abolitionists was used against them by religious opponents of emancipation, who . . . even described abolitionism itself as an atheist plot.” WarUsedReligionThreeReligiousAtheistDecadesRadicalOpponentsCivil WarPlotEmancipationEthosAbolitionist Book:Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism Source: Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
“It is easy to forget, since the Catholic Church is now the only large American religious denomination whose ecclesiastical hierarchy continues to oppose birth control, that only a century ago the leaders of nearly all churches were united in their resistance to any public discussion of the subject.” ReligionEasyChurchReligiousForgetUnitedLeaderSubjectsCenturyBirthCatholicResistanceDiscussionHierarchyCatholic ChurchBirth ControlDenominations Book:Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism Source: Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
