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Religion Quotes

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Religion Quotes

“We ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character.”

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Author:Baron de Montesquieu
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“An idea is growing in foreign policy circles in Washington ... that there is no turning back. We are stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan for 25 to 40 years, we are embedded in our prideful unilateralism, and nothing can return us to more traditional American values and principles of action. The hubristic creators of this "inevitability" planned it this way. ... Their failures in Iraq have not stopped the fanatic, power-hungry neoconservatives. ... The hard-liners who dominate this administration ... have led us to eternal conflict with Muslims.”

WayYearsIdeasWarHardActionReligionValuesPrinciplesPowerGrowingPolicyReturnConflictEternalIraqCreatorCirclesStuckHungryTraditionalAdministrationAfghanistanForeign PolicyFanaticsEmbeddedInevitabilityAmerican ValuesNo Turning BackPower HungryUnilateralism
Author:Georgie Anne Geyer
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“The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the ideas of their opponents.”

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Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“Creationists argue that natural selection is only a negative process, and therefore cannot create anything. Chopra argues that skepticism is only a negative process, and therefore does not lead to knowledge. Both are wrong for the same reasons. They ignore the generation of diversity and new ideas upon which natural selection and skepticism acts. Weeding out the unfit is critical to both - natural selection allows evolution to proceed, and skepticism allows science to advance.”

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Author:Steven Novella
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“To put it as simply as possible: I am not a Muslim.[...] I do not accept the charge of apostacy, because I have never in my adult life affirmed any belief, and what one has not affirmed one can not be said to have apostasized from. The Islam I know states clearly that 'there can be no coercion in matters of religion'. The many Muslims I respect would be horrified by the idea that they belong to their faith purely by virtue of birth, and that a person who freely chose not to be a Muslim could therefore be put to death.”

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Author:Salman Rushdie
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“Why did the consensus of Christian churches not only accept these astonishing views but establish them as the only true form of Christian doctrine? . . . these religious debates - questions of the nature of God, or of Christ - simultaneously bear social and political implications that are crucial to the development of Christianity as an institutional religion. In simplest terms, ideas which bear implications contrary to that development come to be labeled as 'heresy'; ideas which implicitly support it become 'orthodox.'”

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Author:Elaine Pagels
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“One form of religion perpetually gives way to another; if religion did not change it would be dead. ... Each time the new ideas appear they are seen at first as a deadly foe threatening to make religion perish from the earth; but in the end there is a deeper insight and a better life with ancient follies and prejudices gone.”

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Book:The Greek Way
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“My idea of the Christian religion is, that it is an inspiration and its vital consequences--an inspiration and a life--God's life breathed into a man and breathed through a man--the highest inspiration and the highest life of every soul which it inhabits; and, furthermore, that the soul which it inhabits can have no high issue which is not essentially religious.”

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Book:PLAIN TALKS ON FAMILIAR SUBJECTS
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“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.”

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Author:Susan Jacoby
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“Where is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck with a sort of infidel idea, that whatever other worlds God may be Lord of, he is not the Lord of this; for else this world would seem to give the lie to Him; so utterly repugnant seem its ways to the instinctively known ways of Heaven.”

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Book:Pierre; or The Ambiguities
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“If I meet the Christian Deity, I am lost: He is a tyrant and as such, is full of ideas of vengeance; His Bible speaks of nothing but fearful punishments. I never loved Him! I could never even believe that anyone did love Him sincerely. He is devoid of pity.... He will punish me in some abominable manner.”

IfsBelieveIdeasGodChristianReligionLostSpeakGuiltPunishmentPityTyrantsFearfulVengeanceDeitiesSincerely
Book:The Red and the Black: World Classics
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“I shall venture to affirm, that there never was a popular religion, which represented the state of departed souls in such a light,as would render it eligible for human kind, that there should be such a state. These fine models of religion are the mere product of philosophy. For as death lies between the eye and the prospect of futurity, that event is so shocking to nature, that it must throw a gloom on all the regions which lie beyond it; and suggest to the generality of mankind the idea of Cerberus and Furies; devils, and torrents of fire and brimstone.”

ShouldHumansKindIdeasSoulStatesPhilosophyLightEyeDeathLyingReligionFireMankindEventsProductsFineModelsDevilMereRegionsAfterlifeVentureShockingFuryGloomDepartedGeneralitiesCerberusDeparted Soul
Book:Dialogues and Natural History of Religion
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“The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. To be sure, theology is always yielding a little to the progress of knowledge, and only a Holy Roller in the mountains of Tennessee would dare to preach today what the popes preached in the Thirteenth Century, but this yielding is always done grudgingly, and thus lingers a good while behind the event.”

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Book:Minority Report
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“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
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“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”

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Author:Albert Einstein
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“I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different religion and he want to make argument about God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man say about God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, 'I agree with you.' Then you go home, pray what you want. This is my idea for people to have peace about religion.”

PeopleIfsMenWantPersonsIdeasDifferentHomeReligionPrayingArgumentAgreeWhat You WantArguingBest ThingsGood IdeasDifferent Religions
Book:Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything
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“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

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Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.”

MenIdeasReasonUsedReligionJesusAtheismCallingWeaponsMerePriestsPropositionsRidiculeTrinityAgainst ReligionGod DelusionAnti AtheistAbracadabra
Book:The Jefferson Bible: With the Annotated Commentaries on Religion of Thomas Jefferson
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“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”

MenDoeIdeasGodSeemsChristianReligionUniverseLinesJusticeLordAtheismArgumentMereAtheistCrueltyCompareNovelistsAgnosticUnjustCrookedStraight LinesGod ExistsEssayistsApologeticCruel WorldProof Of GodProof That God ExistsProof God ExistsProblem Of EvilCrooked Lines
Book:Joyful Christian
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“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

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Book:The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
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