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Church Quotes

“But the churchmen fain would kill their church, As the churches have kill'd their Christ.”

Christ Church Atheism Positive Atheism

Book:English Poetry III: Tennyson to Whitman: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. XLII (in 51 Volumes)

Source: English Poetry III: Tennyson to Whitman: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. XLII (in 51 Volumes)

“I questioned the faithful of all communions; I particularly sought the society of clergymen, who are the depositories of the various creeds and have a personal interest in their survival ... all thought the main reason for the quiet sway of religion over their country was the complete separation of church and state. I have no hesitation in stating that throughout my stay in America I met nobody, lay or cleric, who did not agree about that.”

“The disconnection of Church and State was a master stroke for freedom and harmony.”

States Church Atheism Masters Harmony Positive Atheism Strokes Church And State Disconnection

Book:Equitable Commerce: a New Development of Principles, as Substitutes for Laws and Governments ...: Proposed as Elements of New Society

Source: Equitable Commerce: a New Development of Principles, as Substitutes for Laws and Governments ...: Proposed as Elements of New Society

“When they have opened a gap in the ... wall of separation between the Garden of the Church and the wildernes of the world, God hath ever ... made his Garden a Wildernesse.”

World Made Church Atheism Wall Garden Positive Atheism Separation Gaps

Author:Roger Williams

“What, but the rapacity of the only men who exercised their reason, the priests, secured such vast property to the church, when a man gave his perishable substance to save himself from the dark torments of purgatory; and found it more convenient to indulge his depraved appetites, and pay an exorbitant price for absolution, than listen to the suggestions of reason, and work out his own salvation: in a word, was not the separation of religion from morality the work of the priests...?”

Source: The Vindications: The Rights of Men and The Rights of Woman

“It was in this year, 1828, that the standard of "the Christian Party in Politics" was openly unfurled... This was an evident attempt, through the influence of the clergy over the female mind - until this hour lamentably neglected in the United States - to effect a union of Church and State.”

“There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

“Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself, as well as from others, than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture? ... I do not mean to imply that the evil are anything other than a small minority among the religious or that the religious motives of most people are in any way spurious. I mean only that evil people tend to gravitate toward piety for the disguise and concealment it can offer them.”

“We are a people of many races, many faiths, creeds, and religions. I do not think that the men who made the Constitution forbade the establishment of a State church because they were opposed to religion. They knew that the introduction of religious differences into American life would undermine the democratic foundations of this country. What holds for adults holds even more for children, sensitive and conscious of differences. I certainly hope that the Board of Education will think very, very seriously before it introduces this division and antagonism in our public schools.”

“Encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar appropriated for their support shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian schools. Resolve that neither the state nor nation, nor both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land of opportunity of a good common school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogmas. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”

“The Church demonstrated the falsity and folly of Darwin's theories by showing that they contradicted the Mosaic account of creation, and now that the theories of Darwin having been fairly established, the Church says that the Mosaic account is true because it is in harmony with Darwin. Now, if it should turn out that Darwin was mistaken, what then?”

Ifs Should Turns Church Atheism Creation Theory Accounts Harmony Positive Atheism Folly Mistaken Mosaics Falsity

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“The churches have no confidence in each other. Why? Because they are acquainted with each other.”

Church Atheism Positive Atheism No Confidence

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“It is told that the great Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: Whoever saw angels with sandals? Angelo answered with another question: Whoever saw an angel barefooted?”

Said Artist Church Saws Atheism Angel Positive Atheism Cardinals Decorating Sandals

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“I believe in absolute freedom of conscience for all men and equality of all churches, all sects and all beliefs before the law as a matter of right and not as a matter of favor. I believe in the absolute separation of church and state and in the strict enforcement of the Constitution that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof I believe that no tribunal of any church has any power to make any decree of any force in the law of the land, other than to establish the status of its own communicants within its own church.”

“Men can never understand the fear of everlasting punishment that fills the souls of women and children. The orthodox religion, as drawn from the Bible and expounded by the church, is enough to drive the most imaginative and sensitive natures to despair and death.”

Men Children Soul Enough Church Atheism Despair Positive Atheism Punishment Sensitive Orthodox Everlasting Imaginative

Author:Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“As women are taking an active part in pressing on the consideration of Congress many narrow sectarian measures, such as more rigid Sunday laws, the stopping of travel, the distribution of the mail on that day, and the introduction of the name of God into the Constitution; and as this action on the part of some women is used as an argument for the disfranchisement of all, I hope this convention will declare that the Woman Suffrage Association is opposed to all union of Church and State, and pledges itself as far as possible to maintain the secular nature of our Government.”

“Whatever oppressions man has suffered, they have invariably fallen more heavily on woman. Whatever new liberties advancing civilization has brought to man, ever the smallest measure has been accorded to woman, as a result of church teaching. The effect of this is seen in every department of life.”

Men Has Beens Church Results Liberty Atheism Teaching Effects Civilization Positive Atheism Oppression Fallen Department Smallest Advancing

Author:Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“It is often asserted that woman owes all the advantages of the position she occupies to-day to Christianity, but the facts of history show that the Christian Church has done nothing specifically for woman's elevation. In the general march of civilization, she has necessarily reaped the advantage of man's higher development, but we must not claim for Christianity all that has been achieved by science, discovery and invention.”

“The choir always tittered and whispered all through the service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was.”

Church Atheism Forgotten Ill Positive Atheism Choir Church Choir

Book:Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer: The NewSouth Edition

Source: Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer: The NewSouth Edition

“Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.”

Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 8: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815

“I do not speak for my church on public matters; and the church does not speak for me.”

Doe Matter Speak Church Atheism Positive Atheism Church And State Separation Between Church And State

Author:John F. Kennedy

“I believe the American people are more concerned with a man's views and abilities than with the church to which he belongs. I believe the founding fathers meant it when they provided in Article VI of the Constitution that there should be no religious test for public office. And I believe that the American people mean to adhere to those principles today.”

“There was the strangest combination of church influence against me. Baker is a Campbellite; and therefore, as I suppose with few exceptions, got all of that Church. My wife had some relations in the Presbyterian churches, and some in the Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would tell, I was set down as either one or the other, while it was everywhere contended that no Christian ought to vote for me because I belonged to no Church, and was suspected of being a Deist and had talked of fighting a duel.”

Christian Fighting Church Wife Atheism Influence Ought Vote Relation Positive Atheism My Wife Combination Exception Bakers Presbyterians Deist Vote For Me

Author:Abraham Lincoln

“Mr. Lincoln's maxim and philosophy were: 'What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.' He never joined any Church. He was a religious man always, I think, but was not a technical Christian.”

Thinking Men Philosophy Christian Church Religious Prayer Atheism Positive Atheism Maxims Decree

Author:Mary Todd Lincoln

“[T]he bill exceeds the rightful authority to which governments are limited by the essential distinction between civil and religious functions, and violates in particular the article of the Constitution of the United States which declares that Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.... This particular church, therefore, would so far be a religious establishment by law, a legal force and sanction being given to certain articles in its constitution and administration.”

“Because the bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority to provide for the support of the poor and the education of poor children of the same, an authority which, being altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.”

Source: Selected Writings of James Madison

“Parasitism is the only practice of the church; with its ideal of anaemia, its holiness, draining all blood, all love, all hope for life; the beyond as the will to negate every reality; the cross as the mark of recognition for the most subterranean conspiracy that ever existed-against health, beauty, whatever has turned out well, courage, spirit, graciousness of the soul, against life itself.”

Wells Soul Reality Spirit Church Practice Blood Atheism Ideals Crosses Mark Positive Atheism Recognition Holiness Conspiracy Graciousness Draining Health Beauty Anaemia

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche

“I was called before the head matron, a tall woman with a stolid face. She began taking my pedigree. What religion? was the first question. None, I am an atheist. Atheism is prohibited here. You will have to go to church. I replied that I would do nothing of the kind. I did not believe in anything the Church stood for and, not being a hypocrite, I would not attend.”

Firsts Believe Kind Faces Church Atheism Atheist Positive Atheism Tall Hypocrite Pedigree Being A Hypocrite Tall Women

Book:Living My Life (Two Volumes in One)

Source: Living My Life (Two Volumes in One)

“What James Madison and the other men of his generation had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment was that there should be no official relationship of any character between government and any church or many churches, and no levying of taxes for the support of any church, or many churches, or all churches, or any institution conducted by any of them.”

Men Should Mind Firsts Character Government Church Support Generations Atheism Taxes Institutions Positive Atheism Officials Amendments First Amendment Madison

Author:Sam Ervin

“If religious freedom is to endure in America, the responsibility for teaching religion to public school children must be left to the homes and churches of our land, where this responsibility rightfully belongs. It must not be assumed by the government through the agency of the public school system.”

“The Church which taught men not to keep faith with heretics, had no claim to toleration.”

Men Church Atheism Taught Claims Positive Atheism Heretic Keep The Faith Toleration

Author:John Locke

“As the magistrate has no power to impose by his laws the use of any rites and ceremonies in any church, so neither has he any power to forbid the use of such rites and ceremonies as are already received, approved, and practised by any church; because if he did so, he would destroy the church itself; the end of whose institution is only to worship God with freedom, after its own manner.”

Ifs Ends Use Law Church Atheism Worship Institutions Positive Atheism Ceremony Approved Rite Worship God Magistrates

Book:A Letter Concerning Toleration: Latin and English Texts Revised and Edited with Variants and an Introduction

Source: A Letter Concerning Toleration: Latin and English Texts Revised and Edited with Variants and an Introduction

“Whenever an important event, a revolution, or a calamity turns to the profit of the church, such is always signalised as the Finger of God.”

Important Turns Church Atheism Events Revolution Fingers Profit Positive Atheism Calamity Important Events

Author:Voltaire

“The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests.”

Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Diary, with passages from an autobiography. Notes of debates in the Continental Congress, in 1775 and 1776. Autobiography