Best Secular Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 9

“My upbringing was pretty interesting. It was a rigorous, intellectual upbringing, but with the idea that we were a part of an important and legitimate enterprise. What that meant was sitting around the dinner table from a really early age with people from all different backgrounds who believed in God. When I was reporting in the wake of September 11th in Iraq and elsewhere, I felt I had the capacity to talk to people whose beliefs might sound outlandish to more secular journalists. I felt like I could be a translator between those two worlds.”

People World Important Different Age Belief Interesting Intellectual Journalist Enterprise Elsewhere Secular September Upbringing September 11 Translators September 11th Outlandish

Author:Eliza Griswold

“Turkish society is divided not only culturally but also politically. You're either conservative or progressive. Islamist or secular. Right wing or left wing. This kind of division can be seen in any society, but in Turkey, the problem is that we are losing any kind of connection between groups and any kind of desire to understand one another. The groups hate each other and they are demolishing all bridges between themselves. So society is divided strictly.”

Kind Problem Desire Hate Losing Conservative Progressive Secular Right Wing Left Wing Turkish

Author:Burhan Sonmez

“I believe Tunisia and Egypt should look to Turkey and see what not to do. Turkey seems to be a secular and democratic country but it is only a show. We are losing the effectiveness of democratic institutions like parliament and judiciary. They now are turning into tools for the benefit of a president-ordering system. A democratic government is possible only on a comprehensive democratic base surrounded by the participatory action of ordinary people.”

People Believe Country Action I Believe Losing Democratic Secular Ordinary People Judiciary

Author:Burhan Sonmez

“When we see through the lens of God's truth, revealed primarily in his Word, everything comes into sharper focus. Suddenly, we'll see that everything is integrated and overlapping - that the world is not divided between the sacred and the secular, but there's one life, and God is the Master of all of it. God knows all things, past, present, and future, and is all-wise; when we train ourselves to see more as he sees, we'll pursue the things he values and seek to live before him as our primary audience.”

World Past Values Audience Focus Train Secular God Knows Integrated Past Present Past Present And Future

Author:Kenneth Boa

“Escuela Caribe preyed upon parents' fears of secular culture to recruit students. Parents could send their kids to a place where they'd be sheltered from evil secular influences - sex, drugs, alcohol, and a questioning mentality. A place where children would be forced to become good little clones of their parents.”

Children Kids Culture Evil Parent Influence Students Drug Alcohol Mentality Questioning Secular

Author:Julia Scheeres

“If I had to guess, I'd estimate that 9 out of 10 Liberty students come to Christian college on their own, with no pressure from their parents or religious leaders. A lot of the students came from secular high schools, and for them, Liberty is a place where they can practice their faith freely without feeling ostracized or mocked.”

Feelings School Christian Parent Religious Liberty Leader Students College High School Secular

Author:Kevin Roose

“I was raised with no religious training or influence. Except the influence was to be a moral and ethical person at the secular level. And to be a peace marcher, an activist for civil rights, peace and justice.”

Persons Religious Justice Levels Moral Rights Influence Training Raised Civil Rights Activist Ethical Secular Peace And Justice

Author:Anne Lamott

“'The Purpose-Driven Life' is not just a mega-bestselling work of Christian faith; it is the thing that every voter, secular or not, yearns for.”

Christian Life Is Purpose Driven Voters Secular Purpose Driven Life Christian Faith Mega

Author:Eric Liu

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

Source: James Madison's

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.”

Source: Selected Writings of James Madison

“If a person is homosexual by nature - that is, if one's sexuality is as intrinsic a part of one's identity as gender or skin color - then society can no more deny a gay person access to the secular rights and religious sacraments because of his homosexuality than it can reinstate Jim Crow.”

Ifs Persons Religious Rights Identity Color Gay Skins Deny Gender Sexuality Access Secular Homosexuality Homosexual Sacraments Crow Jim Crow Skin Color

Author:Jon Meacham

“The cloning procedure is similar to IVF. The only difference is that the DNA of sperm and egg would be replaced by DNA from an adult cell. What law or principle - secular, humanist, or religious - says that one combination of genetic material in a flask is OK, but another is not?”

Would Be Law Differences Religious Principles Materials Adults Cells Combination Eggs Humanist Secular Replaced Dna Procedures Cloning Flasks Ivf

Author:Nathan Myhrvold

“Faith: not wanting to know what is true.”

Source: The Portable Nietzsche

“You want to have two guys making out in front of your 4-year-old? It's OK with them. A guy smoking a joint, blowing the smoke into your little kid's face? OK with them. And I'm not exaggerating here. This is exactly what the secular movement stands for.”

Want Years Littles Two Kids Faces Guy Fronts Movement Smoke Smoking Secular Little Kid Joints Exaggerating Two Guys Smoking A Joint

Author:Bill O'Reilly

“To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.”

Facts Religion Religious Morality Authority Obvious Deny Secular Sanctions Supplies

Author:Joseph Addison

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

Source: The Theological Works of Thomas Paine

“Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.”

“My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”

“Public education grants secular worldviews an exclusive monopoly in the classroom.”

Grants Classroom Secular Monopoly Exclusive Worldview Public Education

Author:Nancy Pearcey

“The Muslim world is threatened by religious fanaticism. The Western world is threatened by secular fanaticism.”

World Religious Western Secular Threatened Fanaticism Western World Muslim World

Author:Dennis Prager

“The truth is, the secular world isn't too enamored with Jesus. And they're not too enamored with someone who is leading people to Jesus. So if you're out there talking about people's sins, and you're talking about righteousness, you will get pushback. Jesus Himself did. The apostles did. I mean, there's persecution all up and down the line.”

People Ifs World Mean Jesus Lines Sin Talking Truth Is Righteousness Secular Persecution Up And Down Apostles Enamored

Author:Pat Robertson

“The Muslim population in India is, largely speaking, not radicalised. From the beginning, they were always very secular-minded.”

India Population Secular

Author:Salman Rushdie

“Britain, relative to the U.S., is a highly secular society. Philanthropy alone cannot fill the gap left by government cutbacks. And the sources of altruism go deep into our evolutionary past.”

Government Past Left Source Britain Gaps Relative Secular Philanthropy Altruism Secular Society Cutbacks

Author:Jonathan Sacks

“Europe today is the most secular region in the world. Europe is the only region in the world experiencing population decline. Wherever you turn today the more religious the community, the larger on average are their families.”

World Today Turns Community Religious Europe Average Population Regions Decline Secular

Author:Jonathan Sacks

“Saddam Hussein was not an Islamist. He's not a radical jihadist. He's not a radical Muslim. I mean, he was a - he was a Baathist. He was a secular - even though he professed to be a good and devout Muslim.”

Mean Radical Secular Saddam Hussein Islamists

Author:Rick Santorum

“A Muslim fanatic and a Christian fanatic, a Jewish fanatic, a secular fanatic, an atheist fanatic, a communist fanatic - all of them are the same. The thinking that, 'If you don't think like me, that if you are not with me, then you are against me;' this is something to condemn.”

Ifs Thinking Christian Atheist Like Me Communist Secular Fanatics

Author:Marjane Satrapi

“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.”

Source: The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929

“Flawed as they may be, science and the secular Enlightenment values expressed in Western democracies are our best hope for survival.”

May Values Democracy Survival Enlightenment Western Secular Flawed Hoping For The Best

Book:The Believing Brain: From Spiritual Faiths to Political Convictions – How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths.

Source: The Believing Brain: From Spiritual Faiths to Political Convictions – How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths.

“It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”

Source: Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist

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

“Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn't stack up against a two-millennium-old funeral high mass.”

Two Humanity Mass Funeral Secular Millennium

Author:E. O. Wilson

“So in my freshman year at the University of Alabama, learning the literature on evolution, what was known about it biologically, just gradually transformed me by taking me out of literalism and increasingly into a more secular, scientific view of the world.”

World Years Literature Views Known Evolution University Transformed Secular Alabama Freshman Freshman Year

Author:E. O. Wilson

“The reason Buddhism can be so naturalised is because, stripped of its supernatural elements, its core teachings can be giving a sound, secular philosophical interpretation. In other words, it becomes a religion acceptable to the contemporary, naturalistic mind only when it ceases to be a religion.”

Giving Mind Reason Sound Teaching Buddhism Elements Philosophical Core Cease Contemporary Interpretation Acceptable Secular Supernatural Elements

Author:Julian Baggini

“If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas and established structures, including our own. We listen to people in other denominations and religions. We don't find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don't cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both-and, fully aware that God's truth cannot be imprisoned in a small definition.”

Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Source: The God Delusion

“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.”

Source: The wit and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: a treasury of more than 900 quotations and anecdotes

“If someone were to ask whether communications skills or meekness is most important to a marriage, I'd answer meekness, hands down. You can be a superb communicator but still never have the humility to ask, 'Is it I?' Communication skills are no substitute for Christlike attributes. As Dr. Douglas Brinley has observed, 'Without theological perspectives, secular exercises designed to improve our relationship and our communication skills (the common tools of counselors and marriage books) will never work any permanent change in one's heart: they simply develop more clever and skilled fighters!”

“Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one.”

Spiritual Science Death Desire Religious Atheism Dying Atheist Vain Secular Agnostic Being Thankful There Is No God Forsake There Being No God Presumptuous

Author:Richard Dawkins

“There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.”

Messages Sacred Secular Incarnation

Book:Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“Basically there can be no categories such as 'religious' art and 'secular' art, because all true art is incarnational, and therefore 'religious.”

Art Religious Art Is Categories Secular Religious Art

Book:Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“Religions are all alike- founded upon fables and mythologies.”

“Perhaps in the world's destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence.”

World Made Would Be Lasts Silence Mountain Waste Ocean Destruction Secular Sweeping

Book:The Road

Source: The Road

“As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, - as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

States Government Christian Religion President Church Religious United United States Atheist Separation Secular Founding Church And State Separation Of Church And State Our Founding Fathers Religious Freedom Founding Fathers Christian State Government Us Founding Fathers Founding Fathers Religion Separation Between Church And State Founding Fathers Religious Freedom Of Religion Religion God Christian Church Religious Liberty Founding Fathers Anti Religion Founding Fathers Of America Founding America American Founding Fathers Founding Fathers Atheist Religious Philosophy Deism Christianity From Founding Fathers Christian Atheist Religion Christian Christian Father United States Government Christian Heritage Religion And Government Christian Right Faith Religion Religion In Society Christian God Deist God And Country Greatest Atheist Non Religious Secular Society Christian Freedom Hate Religion Christianity And Government Sacred Fire Laws And Government

Author:John Adams

“A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.”

Source: Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend

“I will go wherever the truth leads me. It is secular scholarship, Rebbe; it is not the scholarship of tradition. In secular scholarship there are no boundaries and no permanently fixed views.” Lurie, if the Torah cannot go out into your world of scholarship and return stronger, then we are all fools and charlatans. I have faith in the Torah. I am not afraid of truth.”

Ifs World Views Fool Return Tradition Stronger Boundaries Fixed Have Faith Not Afraid Secular Scholarship Leading Me No Boundaries Charlatans Torah

Author:Chaim Potok

“Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.”

Religion Church Religious Impossible Atheism Remains Atheist Absurd Secular Agnostic Miraculous Vacuums Unreasonable There Is No God Atheistic If There Is A God There Being No God

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“The journey homewards. Coming home. That's what it's all about. The journey to the coming of the Kingdom. That's probably the chief difference between the Christian and the secular artist--the purpose of the work, be it story or music or painting, is to further the coming of the kingdom, to make us aware of our status as children of God, and to turn our feet toward home.”

Children Stories Home Christian Purpose Artist Turns Differences Journey Feet Painting Kingdoms Chiefs Coming Home Secular Child Of God

Book:Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.' A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee's brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover's lip: 'Forever.”

Source: CYRANO DE BERGERAC

“Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.”

Religious Atheism Ignorance Products Atheist Secular Moderation

Book:The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Source: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

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