Best Religious Wars Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us. Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament of the other.”

Source: The age of reason

“A new, rather grisly lesson in Daevabad's history." Nahri made a face. "Just once, I'd like to learn of an event that was nothing but our ancestors conjuring rainbows and dancing in the street together.”

Religious Wars Djinn

Book:The Kingdom of Copper

Source: The Kingdom of Copper

“What are the chances that of all 1.59629 quadrillion square feet of physical land on planet Earth, three major world religions are literally fighting over one single rock?”

War Religion Peace Christianity Islam Judaism Muslim Jerusalem Religious Wars World Religion Holy City

Book:A Year of Living Prayerfully

Source: A Year of Living Prayerfully

“All religious wars are about people arguing over who has the biggest invisible friend.”

People War Religious Arguing Invisible Religious Wars

Author:Yasser Arafat

“The Palestinians are a despotic, undemocratic grouping which promotes a religious war against Israel, a democracy, through terror.”

War Religious Democracy Terror Israel Palestinian Religious Wars

Author:Melanie Phillips

“In Jerusalem, the various modes of worship essentially stood for the same cause but were equally hateful to one another. They never served as a unifying factor. Their adherents were equally manipulated by the clergies to regard the others as wicked infidels or idolaters. The centuries passed in constant pious agitation and in frequent religious wars.”

War Causes Religious Atheism Century Worship Regard Constant Various Positive Atheism Factors Wicked Hateful Pious Jerusalem Agitation Infidel Unifying Religious Wars

Book:Jerusalem, Battlegrounds of Memory

Source: Jerusalem, Battlegrounds of Memory

“We have a war on women, race wars. Income wars, age wars, religious wars, anything you can imagine. A house divided against itself cannot stand it. And it's going to be up to us, to people, to begin the focus on the positive things, on the things that we have in common and stop listening to those who are stoking the fires of division.”

People War Age House Religious Common Race Fire Focus Imagine Listening Income Division Divided Positive Things Religious Wars House Divided

Author:Benjamin Carson

“Christianity ... has produced the iniquities of the Inquisition, the egotism and celibacy of the monasteries, the fury of religious wars, the ferocity of the Hussite, of the Catholic, of the Puritan, of the Spaniard, of the Irish Orangeman and of the Irish Papist; it has divided families, alienated friends, lighted the torch of civil war, and borne the virgin and the greybeard to the burning pile, broken delicate limbs upon the wheel and wrung the souls and bodies of innocent creatures on the rack; all this it has done, and done in the name of God.”

“the worst wars are religious wars between sects of the same religion or civil wars between brothers of the same race.”

War Religious Race Worst Brother Civil War Sects Religious Wars

Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection

Source: Ayn Rand Novel Collection

“All the religious wars that have caused blood to be shed for centuries arise from passionate feelings and facile counter-positions, such as Us and Them, good and bad, white and black.”

War Feelings Black Religious White Blood Century Position Passionate Arise Shed Good And Bad Religious Wars

Author:Umberto Eco

“The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648, was a series of conflicts that became the last great struggle of religious wars in Europe. It was fought almost exclusively on German soil...but before the war ended, it involved most of the nations of Europe. The underlying cause of the war was the deep-seated hostility between the German Protestants and German Catholics - with the Jesuits and Cardinal Richelieu, who was the real ruler of France, fanning the fires to accomplish their ends.”

“While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its liabilities. Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapable of criticizing ideas that are now patently absurd and increasingly maladaptive.”

Ideas War Religious Hatred Tolerance Absurd Criticize Provoking Incapable Liability Religious Tolerance Religious Wars Religious Hatred

Author:Sam Harris

“Throughout history, religious wars have always been the most brutal and cruel and merciless.”

War Evil Religious Brutal Religious Wars

Author:Al Gore

“Christianity...made, for nearly 1,500 years, persecution, religious wars, massacres, theological feuds and bloodshed, heresy huntings and heretic burnings, prisons, dungeons, anathemas, curses, opposition to science, hatred of liberty, spiritual bondage, the life without love or laughter.”

“If one takes full account of the persecution of heretics, the frequency and savagery of the religious wars which Christianity had endangered, the harm caused, especially to children, by the pernicious doctrine of original sin, a case could be made for saying that the world would have been better off without Christianity.”

“It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive. That so much of this suffering can be directly attributed to religion—to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious delusions and religious diversions of scarce resources—is what makes atheism a moral and intellectual necessity.”

Humans War Suffering Dies Loses Religious Human Beings Moral Alive Atheism Terrible Intellectual Resources Hatred Delusion Scarce Diversion Religious Wars Scarce Resources Religious Hatred

Author:Sam Harris

“The religious wars showed that the Christian faith was no longer Europe's unifying force. A new common ground was needed, and it was found in reason, which is something that is shared by all of mankind. This was one of the roots of the Enlightenment and its concept of universal human rights.”

“I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.”

War Spirit Religious Acknowledge Multiplicity Religious Wars

Author:Baron de Montesquieu

“Jealousy destroys the matrimonies; jealousy destroys the friendships, jealousy provokes religious wars, fratricidal hates, murderers and all kind of suffering.”

Kind War Suffering Hate Religious All Kinds Provoking Murderer Matrimony Religious Wars

Author:Samael Aun Weor

“They don't want to feed an ISIS narrative that there is a religious war between Islam and the Christian West, plus genocide is carefully defined under international law.”

Want War Christian Law Religious West Islam International Defined Narrative Plus Genocide Isis International Law Religious Wars

Author:Tom Gjelten

“The biggest religious wars and persecutions in history occur when religions, each claiming their own absolute truths, come into conflict.”

War Religious Conflict Absolutes Persecution Absolute Truth Religious Wars

Author:Susan Jacoby

“We've gone thorough religious wars and civil wars. America has gone through slavery, we've all gone through two world wars, segregation. Ultimately it's been a bloody, trying, wasteful, but eventually positive struggle.”

World Trying Two War America Religious Struggle Gone Slavery War Of The Worlds Civil War Bloody Segregation Thorough Two Worlds Religious Wars

Author:Michael Scheuer

“The fact is that philosophy has been a decisive source of inspiration in all the great crises that Europe has faced. It has been so in the time that preceded the fall of the Roman Empire, when Augustine of Hippo delineated the features of a new spiritual civilization; in the age of religious wars, when Descartes and Hobbes established the principles of modern science and politics; and at the turn of the French Revolution, interpreted by Kant and Hegel as an event destined to change the history of the world.”

“Prior to and during [John] Locke's time, it was difficult to determine where religion or church left off and government or state began. The powers of both were often combined. As a result, churches frequently used the force of the state to promote and enforce their interests and doctrines. This caused horrendous atrocities against Jews and heretics, as well as the European religious wars between Catholics and Protestants of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that resulted in the deaths of millions of people.”

People Wells War States Government Used Left Force Difficult Interest Church Religious Results Millions Century Catholic Determine Jew Doctrine Protestants Atrocities Heretic Religious Wars

Author:Jayne Meadows

“It started partly as a sectarian war in some areas, but now it's not, because when you talk about sectarian war or religious war, you should have a very clear line between the sects and religions in Syria according to the geography and the demography in Syria, something we don't have.”

Should War Religious Lines Clear Areas Should Have Syria Geography Sects Religious Wars Demography

Author:Bashar al-Assad

“It's not religious war, but Al-Qaeda always use religions, Islam - actually, as a pretext and as a cover and as a mantle for their war and for their terrorism and for their killing and beheading and so on.”

War Use Religious Islam Killing Terrorism Als Al Qaeda Pretext Religious Wars

Author:Bashar al-Assad

“[Pope Francis] most recent trip was to Sweden, where he commemorated the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. That had triggered one of the biggest splits in Christianity and decades of religious wars. He went so far as to praise Luther, who was once considered a heretic in the church, as a great reformer. So what he's been doing with other Christian churches is trying to heal past wounds and work together toward a shared view of their history.”

“In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.”

Men Long Has Beens War Reality Term Religious History Conflict Long Term Nature Of Man Religious Wars Religion War Religion And War Religious Conflict Causes Of Conflict

Author:Richard M. Nixon

“Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.”

Humans War Reason Facts Spirit Religion Religious Spread Intolerance Eclipse Human Reason Religious Wars Total Eclipse

Author:Baron de Montesquieu

“All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. And that's where it turns demonic. Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake.”

Needs War Seems Religion Turns Religious Prove Burning Stakes Persecution Heretic Demonic Religious Wars

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”

“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.”

“You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principle enemy of moral progress in the world.”

Source: The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959

“If religions are diseases of the human psyche, as the philosopher Grintholde asserts, then religious wars must be reckoned the resultant sores and cankers infecting the aggregate corpus of the human race. Of all wars, these are the most detestable, since they are waged for no tangible gain, but only to impose a set of arbitrary credos upon another's mind.”

Ifs Mind Humans War Religious Race Disease Gains Philosopher Human Race Arbitrary Tangible Jihad Human Psyche Religious Wars Corpus Credo

Author:Jack Vance

“The world has never been as divided as it is now, what with religious wars, genocides, a lack of respect for the planet, economic crisis, depression, poverty, with everyone wanting instant solutions to at least some of the world's problems or their own. And things only look bleaker as we head into future.”

World Looks War Problem Religious Poverty Economic Planets Solutions Crisis Instant Divided Genocide Economic Crisis Religious Wars Lack Of Respect

Book:Aleph

Source: Aleph

“Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image.”

Years Said War Religion Religious Sun Atheism Destruction Indian Temples Jealous Idols Persecution Egyptian Tribunals Religious Wars Religious Persecution

Author:Arthur Schopenhauer

“This pride of race is a quality which the German, fundamentally, does not possess. The reason for this is that for these last three centuries the country has been torn by internal dissension and religious wars and has been subjected to a variety of foreign influences, to the influence, for example, of Christianity-for Christianity is not a natural religion for the Germans, but a religion that has been imported and which strikes no responsive chord in their hearts and is foreign to the inherent genius of the race. (13th February 1945)”

“The fruits of Christianity were religious wars, butcheries, crusades, inquisitions, extermination of the natives of America, and the introduction of African slaves in their place.”

War America Religious Christianity Slave Fruit Native American Introduction Crusades Inquisition Extermination Religious Wars Religion And War Butchery

Book:Religion

Source: Religion

“We're in a religious war and we need to aggressively oppose secular humanism; these people are as religiously motivated as we are and they are filled with the devil.”

People Needs War Religion Religious Atheism Devil Filled Humanism Motivated Secular Religious Wars Secular Humanism

Author:Tim LaHaye

“We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell.”

Love Kind War Soul Body Remember Religious Hell Fire Alive Eternal Eternity Intention Saving Burned Gentleness Religious Wars Saving Souls

Book:Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge

Source: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge

“Once started, religious strife has a tendency to go on and on - to become permanent feuds. Today we see such intractable inter-religious wars in Northern Ireland, between Jews and Muslims and Christians in Palestine, Hindus and Muslims in South Asia and in many other places. Attempts to bring about peace have failed again and again. Always the extremist elements invoking past injustices, imagined or real, will succeed in torpedoing the peace efforts and bringing about another bout of hostility.”

“[The war on terrorism isn't a religious war, but] a defense of our right to make moral choices, to seek fellowship with God that is chosen and not commanded.”

War Choices Religious Moral Scary Terrorism Defense Chosen Fellowship War On Terror War On Terrorism Religious Wars Moral Choices Fellowship With God

Author:John Ashcroft

“No other work has more often been blamed for more heinous crimes by the perpetrators of such crimes. The Bible has been named as the instigating or justifying factor for many individual and mass crimes, ranging from the religious wars, inquisitions, witch burnings, and pogroms of earlier eras to systematic child abuse and ritual murders today.”

“It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy.”

War Christian Sides Religious Lines Enemy Fronts Hatred Scales Warfare Both Sides Fanatics Jihad Religious Wars Religious Hatred

Book:Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness

Source: Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness

“If there ever was a religious war full of terror, it was the Crusades. But you can't blame Christianity because a few adventurers did this.”

Ifs War Religious Christianity Messages Blame Terror Crusades Adventurer Religious Wars

Author:Moustapha Akkad

“I believe in mysticism, with an interior goal, and you are your own temple and your own priest. I dont believe anymore in religions, because you see today there are religious wars, prejudice, false morals, and the woman is despised. Religion is too old now; its from another century, its not for today.”

Believe War Today I Believe Goal Religious Moral Century Prejudice I Believe In Temples Priests Mysticism Interiors Despised Religious Wars

Author:Alejandro Jodorowsky

“Religious war at its simplest is killing each other over who has the best imaginary friend.”

War Religious Killing Imaginary Simplest Killing Each Other Imaginary Friend Religious Wars

Author:Richard Jeni

“I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in morals, movements of races and continents; I used to believe in every kind of magic. I began it as an investigation. I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.”

“Religious War has signified the greatest advance of the masses so far, for it proves that the masses have begun to treat concepts with respect.”

War Religion Religious Prove Mass Concepts Treats Religious Wars

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche

“Lebanon was at one time known as a nation that rose above sectarian hatred; Beirut was known as the Paris of the Middle East. All of that was blown apart by senseless religious wars, financed and exploited in part by those who sought power and wealth. If women had been in charge, would they have been more sensible? It's a theory.”

Ifs Has Beens War Nations Religious Wealth Known Middle Theory Hatred Rose East Paris One Time Sensible Middle East Lebanon Beirut Religious Wars

Author:Roger Ebert