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;void(0)) RELIGION (A-M) . . . (QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS) see: AGNOSTICS ATHEISTS BELIEF BIBLE CHRISTIANITY CHRISTMAS CHURCH CLERGY CONFESSION DOUBT FAITH GOD HEAVEN, HELL IMMORTALITY ISLAM JEWS MARTYRS MIRACLES MISSIONARIES POPE JOHN PAUL II PRAYER PREACHERS PROTESTANTISM REINCARNATION RIGHTEOUS SACRED PLACES SCIENCE AND RELIGION SKEPTICISM SUPERSTITION TELEVANGELISTS MOTHER TERESA TERRORISM --- Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. --John Adams (17351826) First VP and second President of the United States. To the Officers of the First Brigade of the 3rd Division of the Massachusetts Militia [11 October 1798]. In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind ... --Samuel Adams (17221803) American revolutionary leader. _The Rights of the Colonists_ [1771] A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. --Aristotle (384322 B.C.) Greek philosopher. Blood must flow. There must be widows, there must be orphans. --Jihadist Fayiz Azzam addressing a gathering in Atlanta [1990] A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds to religion. --Francis Bacon (15611626) English philosopher and essayist. _Essays_ [1625] "Of Atheism" Sink the Bible to the bottom of the ocean, and man's obligations to God would be unchanged. He would have the same path to tread, only his lamp and his guide would be gone; he would have the same voyage to make, only his compass and chart would be overboard. --Henry Ward Beecher (18131887) American Congregational minister; [brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.] In America today, the only respectable form of bigotry is bigotry directed at religious people. --William J. Bennett (1943 ) American poiltician and author. Quoted in John Bolt, _A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper's American Public Theology_, Eerdmans [2001]. Every dictator uses religion as a prop to keep himself in power. --Benazir Bhutto (19532007 ) Pakistani stateswoman. Interview on "60 Minutes" (TV show) [8 August 1986]. - Faith: Belief without evidence in what one is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annuled on behalf of a single petitioner, admittedly unworthy. --Ambrose Bierce (18421914) American newspaperman, wit, and satirist. _The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906] (Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.) - To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely. --Jorge Luis Borges (18991986) Argentinian writer. "Deutsches Requiem" [1946] Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, doubt (called by Galileo the father of invention), be in religion what the priests term it, the greatest of sins? --Christian Nestell Bovee (18201904) American writer. We have too many men of science; too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. --Omar Bradley (18931981) American general. (Armistice Day speech to the Boston Chamber of Commerce [10 November 1948]. - Christian love, which applies to all, even to one's enemies, is the worst adversary of Communism. --Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (18881938) Russian Communist leader and theoretician. _Pravda_ [30 March 1934] The forms and creeds of religions change, but the sentiment of religion the wonder and reverence and love we feel in the presence of the inscrutable universe persists. --John Burroughs (18371921) American naturalist and writer. _Time and Change_ [1912] The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are even a bigger pain the second time around. --Herb Caen (19161997) American newspaper columnist. In the "San Francisco Chronicle [20 July 1981]. A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent. --John Calvin (15091564) French Protestant theologian of the Reformation. I've begun worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It's there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, and a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to "God" are all answered at about the same 50% rate. --George Carlin (19372008) American stand-up comedian and author. _Brain Droppings_ [1997] The three great elements of modern civilization, Gunpowder, Printing, and the Protestant Religion. --Thomas Carlyle (17951881) Scottish historian and political philosopher. _Essays_ "The State of German Literature" [1838] - When my mother died, I didn't understand death. Couldn't feature it. What do you mean she's gone forever? I was 15, living at a school for the blind 160 miles away from home. She was all I had in the world. No, she couldn't be dead. She'd be back tomorrow. Or the day after. Don't tell me about no death. Death can't take this woman. I need her. Can't make it without her. That's when I saw what everyone sees you can't make a deal with death. No, sir. And you can't make a deal with God. Death is cold-blooded, and maybe God is too. So I'm alone, and I'm going crazy, until Ma Beck, a righteous Christian lady from the little country town where I grew up, wakes me and shakes me and says, 'Boy, stop feeling sorry for yourself. You gotta carry on.' Made me realize I had to depend on me. No one was going to do sh*t for me. You hear me? No one. I could praise Jesus till I'm blue in the face. I could fall on my knees and plead. Pray till the cows come home. But Mama ain't coming back. So if Mama gave me religion, the religion said, "Believe in yourself." --Ray Charles (19302004) American pianist and soul singer. _Brother Ray_ [2004], "The Last Days of Brother Ray" - - It is the test of a good religion whether you can make a joke about it. --G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (18741936) English essayist, novelist, and poet. The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad. --G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (18741936) English essayist, novelist, and poet. "Roman Converts", _Dublin Review_ [January-March 1925] It has often been said, very truly, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary. --G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (18741936) English essayist, novelist, and poet. _Charles Dickens: The Last of the Great Men_, ch. I [1906] - Unwillingness to acknowledge whatever is good in religion foreign to our own has always been a very common trait of human nature; but it seems to me neither generous nor just. --Lydia Marie Child (18021880) Amercan abolitionist and suffragist. The celestial order and the beauty of the universe compel me to admit that there is some excellent and eternal Being, who deserves the respect and homage of men. --attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty. --Henry Clay (17771852) American politician. In a speech in the House of Representatives [24 March 1818]. To hear a famiIiar [a local, lay executive of the Inquisition] utter the words 'In the name of the Holy Inquisition' is to be instantly abandoned by father, mother, relatives, and friends. For no one would dare to take up his defense, or still less to intercede for a man about whom these words had been spoken, for fear of himself becoming suspect in matters of the faith. --Juan Alvarez de Colmenar _An Annal of Spain and Portugal_[1741], in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 335. - There are only two things in which the false professors of all religions have agreed: To persecute all other sects and to plunder their own. --C.C. Colton (17801832) English clergyman and writer. _Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words; Addressed to Those Who Think_ [1820] Bigotry murders religion to frighten folks with her ghost. --C.C. Colton (17801832) English clergyman and writer. In all places, and in all times, those religionists who have believed too much have been more inclined to violence and persecution than those who have believed too little. --C.C. Colton (17801832) English clergyman and writer. - Much of the blood shed in the 20th century was the result of atheist ideologues. It's ironic that religion gets the blame for violence, but critics of religion are silent when a secular or atheistic faith such as that of Stalin or Mao Tse-tung wreaks utter destruction on millions upon millions of lives. --Paul Copan, _Jesus, Religions, and Just War_ God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. --William Cowper (17311800) English poet and hymnodist. "The Hymnal" [1774] I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure that is all that agnosticism means. --Clarence Darrow (18571938) American lawyer. Speech at the trial of John Thomas Scopes [15 July 1925]. Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The Devil always builds a chapel there; And 'twill be found, upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation. --Daniel Defoe (16601731) English novelist and journalist. "The True-Born Englishman" [1701], pt. 1 - The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and . . . people whose aim is to disrupt society know how to make good use of them on occasion. --Denis Diderot (17131784) French writer and philosopher. _Conversations with a Christian Lady_ [1777] Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. --Denis Diderot (17131784) French writer and philosopher. Quoted in Fιlix Martν-Ibαρez _Tales of Philosophy_ [1967]. - I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?' 'No,' said the priest, 'not if you did not know.' 'Then why,' asked the Eskimo earnestly, 'did you tell me?' --Annie Dillard (1945 ) American author and winner of Pulitzer Prize. _Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_, ch. 7 [1974] 'Sensible men are all of the same religion.' 'And pray what is that?' inquired the prince. 'Sensible men never tell.' --Benjamin Disraeli (18041881) British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 18741880]. Endymion, Bk. I, Ch. 81 [1880] Without God everything is permissible. --Fyodor Dostoyevsky (18211881), Russian novelist, journalist, and short story writer. [Of Calvinism:] You will be damned if you do and you will be damned if you don't. --Lorenzo Dow (17771834) American Methodist minister. _Reflections on the Love of God_ch. VI [1836] 'I carry my own church about under my own hat,' said I. 'Bricks and mortar won't make a staircase to heaven.' --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) Scottish-born writer of detective fiction. _The Stark Munro Letters_ [1894] I would no more quarrel with a man because of his religion than I would because of his art. --Mary Baker Eddy (18211910) American founder of the religious faith known as Christian Science. She founded the "Christian Science Monitor" in 1908. "Harvest" published in the "Independent" [November 1906]. - The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavor in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist. "My Credo", Speech to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin [Fall, 1932]. I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own a God, in short who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks... Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist. "Time" (magazine) [(23 December 1940], p. 38 Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling however springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. _Ideas and Opinions_, p. 46 (1954) A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; 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. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist. "Religion and Science" in _New York Times Magazine_ [9 November 1930] - And the wind shall say: 'Here were decent godless people: Their only monument the asphalt road and a thousand lost golf balls.' --T.S. Eliot (18881965) Anglo-American poet, critic, and dramatist. _The Rock_ [1934] - What greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship? Then all things go to decay. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. In an address at Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts [15 July 1838]. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. "Self-Reliance" _Essays_, First Series [1841] The sect of the Quakers in their best representatives appear to me to have come nearer to the sublime history and genius of Christ than any other of the sects. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. In an address on natural religion, Boston, Massachusetts [4 April 1869]. - 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 God both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? --Epicurus (341270 B.C.) Greek philosopher. Attributed, but not found in his writings. ... more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol. --W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield] (18801946) American vaudeville star and film actor. Quoted in "Newsweek" [1973]. To women's fore parts do not aspire From a mule's hinder part retire, And shun all parts of monk or friar. --John Florio (1553?1625) English writer and translator. "Second Frutes" [1591] - When searching for examples of state-sponsored barbarities, intellectuals are quick to point to the Spanish Inquisition or its Protestant imitation, the Witchhunt. How could anyone, modern academics wonder, persecute another for their beliefs? These same intellectuals, ironically, are often the very people who served as cheerleaders for political persecution and mass murder on a scale unmatched in human history. The Spanish Inquisition claimed slightly more than 2,000 lives during its 25-year apex between 1480 and 1505. One would be hard pressed to find any 25-day period in Russia under Stalin, China under Mao, or Cambodia under Pol Pot in which the killing was that slight. Yet it is a Torquemada or Salem that is equated with homicidal intolerance. The crimes of Communism are ignored. Being generous, one might suppose that intellectuals are simply blinded by the prejudices of our age and are unable to detach themselves and see the killing that has occurred right under their noses. A more cynical perspective might view their amnesia as a self-induced condition brought on as a method to absolve themselves of their own role in supporting murder. --Daniel J Flynn, "Ideas Have Consequences ... Like Murder, Tyranny, and Repression" - - Like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, though in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. _Autobiography_ [1798], ch. 8 Many have quarreled about religion that never practiced it. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. Quoted in Frances M. Barbour _A Concordance to the Sayings in Franklin's Poor Richard_ [1974]. - The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief. --Sigmund Freud (18561939) Austrian psychiatrist. _The Future of an Illusion_ (Die Zukunft einer Illusion) [1927] The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100%. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. . . . Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some god-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." --Barry Goldwater (19091998) American conservative politician. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the state forever separate. --Ulysses S. Grant (18221885) American Unionist general and 18th President of the United States [1869-1877]. Speech in Des Moines, Iowa [1875]. - The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive their flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in history. --Robert A(nson) Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. _Time Enough for Love_ [1973] History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it. --Robert A(nson) Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. _Time Enough For Love_ [1973] "Intermission; Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long" p. 257 - I would give nothing for that man's religion, whose very dog and cat are not the better for it. --Rowland Hill (17441833) English preacher. Attributed in Rev. George Seaton Bowes _Illustrative Gatherings, or, Preachers and Teachers_ [1860]. The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not. --Eric Hoffer (19021983) American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982. _The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements _ [1951], Part 3, United Action and Self-Sacrifice XIII. Ignorance and fear are the two hinges of all religion. The uncertainty in which man finds himself in relation to his God, is precisely the motive that attaches him to his religion. --Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (17231789) French philosopher and encyclopedist. _Good Sense, or Natural Ideas vs Supernatural Ideas_ [1772] "Refutation of Arguments for the Existence of God" Sec. 10. Religion is not an intelligence test, but a faith. --Edgar Watson Howe (18541937) American journalist and author. _Sinner Sermons_ [1926] Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous. --David Hume (17111776) Scottish philosopher. _A Treatise of Human Nature_, bk I [1739] At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political idols. --Aldous Huxley (18941963) English novelist (Grandson of T.H. Huxley.) _Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Other Essays_ [1956] In the Muslim community, the holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the [Muslim] mission and the [obligation to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. Therefore caliphate and royal authority are united [in Islam], so that the person in charge can devote the available strength to both of them [religion and politics] at the same time. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty to them, save only for purposes of defense. It has thus come about that the person in charge of religious affairs [in other religions] is not concerned with power politics at all. [Political authority is assigned among peoples of other religions] not because they are under obligation to gain power over other nations, as is the case with Islam. --Ibn Khaldun (13321406) Arab Muslim historian, historiographer, demographer, economist, philosopher, sociologist and social scientist. The Muqaddimah, I, 480. 14th century. To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy. --William Ralph Inge (18601954) English writer and Dean of St. Paul's [19111934]. _Idea of Progress_ [1920] - When I see an exceedingly solemn man, I know he is an exceedingly stupid man. No man of any humor ever founded a religion never. Humor sees both sides. While reason is the holy light, humor carries the lantern, and the man with a keen sense of humor is preserved from the solemn stupidities of superstition. --Robert Green Ingersoll (18331899) American politician and orator known as "The Great Agnostic." "What Must Be Done To Be Saved" My creed is this: happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to help make others so. --Robert Green Ingersoll (18331899) American politician and orator known as "The Great Agnostic." _The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll_ "Interviews" (Pub.: C. P. Farrell) [1900] - The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. _Notes on the State of Virginia_, query 17 [1784] Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to William Canby [18 September 1813]. In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to Horatio Spafford [17 March 1814]. I will never, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to Edward Douse [19 April 1803]. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any others. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter To Dr. Benjamin Rush [21 April 1803]. Is uniformity [of opinion] attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. _Notes on the State of Virginia_ [1784], Query 17. & On the dogmas of religion as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Were I to enter on that arena, I should only add a unit to the number of Bedlamites. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to Mathew Carey [11 November 1816]. - Religion's in the heart, not in the knees. --Douglas Jerrold (18031857) English playwright and journalist. _The Devil's Ducat_ [1830] - Among all my patients in the second half of life that is to say over thirty-five there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook. --Carl Gustav Jung (18751961) Swiss psychologist. _Modern Man in Search of a Soul_, ch. 11 "Psychotherapists or the Clergy" [1933] No matter what the world thinks about religious experience, the one who has it possesses a great treasure, a thing that has become for him a source of life, meaning, and beauty, and that has given a new splendor to the world and to mankind.... Where is the criterion by which you could say that such a life is not legitimate, that such an experience is not valid? --Carl Gustav Jung (18751961) Swiss psychologist. "Psychology and Religion," [1938] Religious experience is absolute, it cannot be disputed. You can only say that you have never had such an experience, whereupon your opponent will reply: 'Sorry, I have.' And there your discussion will come to an end. --Carl Gustav Jung (18751961) Swiss psychologist. "Psychology and Religion," [1938] - If he worshiped, he would be an ardent pantheist, committed to the belief that all things are sacred, every tree and every flower and every blade of grass, every bird and every beetle. The world is full of pantheists these days; he would be at home among them if he were to join their ranks. When everything is sacred, nothing is. For him, that is the beauty of pantheism. If the life of a child is equal to the life of a bluegill or a barn owl, then Vess may kill attractive little girls as casually as he might crush a scorpion underfoot, with no greater moral offense though with considerably more pleasure. --Dean Koontz (b. 1945) American novelist. _Intensity_, ch. 5 [1996] We've come a long way in America. After two centuries, it seems we finally do have a religious test for office. True religiosity is disqualifying. Well, not quite. Believers may serve but only if they check their belief at the office door. At a time when religion is a preference and piety a form of eccentricity suggesting fanaticism, Chesterton needs revision: tolerance is not just the virtue of people who do not believe in anything; tolerance extends only to people who don't believe in anything. Believe in something, and beware. You may not warrant presidential-level attack, but you'll make yourself suspect should you dare enter the naked public square. --Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950) Columnist for the Washington Post who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. "Will it be coffee, tea or He?" in _Time_ (mag.) [1998] The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear. --attributed to Jiddu Krishnamurti (18951986) Indian spiritual philosopher. Religious contention is the devil's harvest. --Jean de La Fontaine (16211695) French poet. Attributed in Henry Southgate (ed.) _Many Thoughts of Many Minds_, p. 119 [1862, 3rd edition]. - Why should you be planning for the publication of any new work at a time when nearly all the books which have thus far appeared are being taken away from us? It seems to me that, at least for some years to come, no one among us will dare to write anything but letters. There has just been published an Index of the books which, under penalty of excommunication, we are no longer permitted to possess. The number of those prohibited (particularly of works originating in Germany) is so great that there will remain but few ... I shall begin tomorrow going over my own collection, so that nothing may be found in it which is not authorised. Should I describe the process as a shipwreck or a holocaust of literature? --Latinus Latinius, a scholar, to Andrea Masius, Rome [January 1559]; in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 363. Cohan & Major explain: The Index of prohibited books issued by Pope Pius IV in January 1559 was another weapon in the armory that the papacy was assembling to combat Protestantism. Luther and his fellow reformers had made unprecedented use of the printing press to propagate their ideas, but Catholics were now banned from reading their books. - All belief which does not render more happy, more free, more loving, more active, more calm, is, I fear, an erroneous and superstitious belief. --Johann Kaspar Lavater (17411801) Swiss writer, Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics. Attributed in James Comper Gray _The Biblical Museum_, p. 21 [1877]. The human race has suffered for centuries and is still suffering from the mental disorder known as religion, and atheism is the only physician that will be able to effect a permanent cure. --Joseph Lewis (18891968) American author and teacher. _Atheism and Other Addresses_ [1999 ed.] As nations improve, so do their gods. --attributed to Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (17421799) German scientist and drama critic. [Recollection of comment by a man at c. 1820 church meeting:] When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. --Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American Republican statesman, President [18611865]. Quoted in William H. Herndon & Jesse W. Weik _Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life_ [1889]. The churches used to win their arguments against atheism, agnosticism, and other burning issues by burning the ism-ists, which is fine proof that there is a devil but hardly evidence that there is a God. --Ben Barr Lindsey (18691943) American judge. _The Revolt of Modern Youth_ [1925] The Puritans tried to choke the craving for pleasure in early New England. They had no theater, no dances, no festivals. They burned witches instead. --Walter Lippmann (18891974) American journalist. _A Preface to Politics_ [1914] Ch. 2 Adversity reminds men of religion. --Livy [Titus Livius] (59 BC17 AD) with Sallust and Tacitus, one of the three great Roman historians [EB]. _The History of Rome_ - Since you are pleased to enquire what are my thoughts about the mutual toleration of Christians in their different professions of religion, I must needs answer you freely, that I esteem that toleration to be the chief characteristical mark of the true church. --John Locke (16321704) English political and educational philosopher. _A Letter Concerning Toleration_ [1689] Every sect, as far as reason will help them, gladly use it; when it fails them, they cry out it is a matter of faith, and above reason. --John Locke (16321704) English political and educational philosopher. Attributecd in _The Lady's Book_ [May 1831] - The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me, for it is your duty to tolerate truth; but when I am the stronger, I shall persecute you, for it is my duty to persecute error. --Thomas Babington Macaulay (18001859) English politician and historian. "Mackintosh's History of the Revolution", essay in _Edinburgh Review_ [1835]. - As the observance of divine institutions is the cause of the greatness of republics, so the disregard of them produces their ruin; for where the fear of God is wanting, there the country will come to ruin, unless it be sustained by the fear of the prince, which temporarily supply the want of religion. --Niccolς Machiavelli (14691527) Florentine statesman and political philosopher. _Discourses_ [1519] There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt. --Niccolς Machiavelli (14691527) Florentine statesman and political philosopher. - The end of life would be much less frightening if it were not called death anymore. The fear of death is the source of all religions. --Maurice Maeterlinck (18621949) Belgium poet and playwright. _New York Times_ [8 May 1960] I shall curse you with book and bell and candle. --Sir Thomas Malory (c. 14201471) English writer. (The reference is to the ceremony of excommunication, current since the eighth century, performed with bell, book, and candle - Bartlett's.) Religion is poison. --Mao Zedong (18931976) Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier and statesman who led his nation's communist revolution. Remark to Dalai Lama, quoted by Martin Scorsese in Charlie Rose television interview, PBS [16 January 1998]. I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance. --Christopher Marlowe (15641593) English dramatist and poet. "The Jew of Malta" prologue [c. 1592] Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. --Karl Marx (18181883) German political philosopher. "A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right" [1843-1844] It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly. --Margaret Mead (19011978) American anthropologist. Quoted in Rhoda Metraux (ed.) _Margaret Mead, Some Personal Views_ [1979]. - There was a time, two or three centuries ago, when the overwhelming majority of educated men were believers, but that is apparently true no longer. Indeed, it is my impression that at least two-thirds of them are now frank skeptics. But it is one thing to reject religion altogether, and quite another thing to try to save it by pumping out of it all its essential substance, leaving it in the equivocal position of a sort of pseudo-science, comparable to graphology, "education," or osteopathy. That, it seems to me, is what the Modernists have done, no doubt with the best intentions in the world. They have tried to get rid of all the logical difficulties of religion, and yet preserve a generally pious cast of mind. It is a vain enterprise. What they have left, once they have achieved their imprudent scavenging, is hardly more than a row of hollow platitudes, as empty of psychological force and effect as so many nursery rhymes. They may be good people and they may even be contented and happy, but they are no more religious than Dr. Einstein. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. "Dr. Fundamentalist", "The Baltimore Evening Sun" [18 January 1937]. We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks_ [1956] - It is doubtless true that religion has been the world's psychiatrist throughout the centuries. --Karl Menninger (18931990) American psychiatrist. _Man Against Himself_ [1938] If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms. --Henry Miller (18911980) American novelist and essayist. _The Colossus of Maroussi_ [1941], pt. III. Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and sometimes a restraint on the wicked; therefore, whoever would laugh or argue it out of the world, without giving some equivalent for it, ought to be treated as a common enemy. --Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [nιe Pierrepont] (16891762) English aristocrat and writer. Letter to the Countess of Bute [23 June 1752], in Lord Wharncliffe (ed.) _The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu_ ]3 vols, 1837]. Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (15331592) French moralist and essayist. _Essays_ [1580] bk. 1, ch. 32 The pious man and the atheist always talk of religion; the one speaks of what he loves, and the other of what he fears. --Baron de Montesquieu (Charles Louis de Secondat) (16891755) French philosopher, jurist, and satirist. _The Spirit of the Laws_, vol. 2, bk. XXV, ch. I [1748] end page | RABBITS - RAIN | RAP - READING | REAGAN (RONALD) - RECOGNITION | RED HEADS - RELIEF | RELIGION - PAGE 1 (A-M) | RELIGION - PAGE 2 (N-Z) | REMEMBERING - REPORTERS | REPUTATION - RESPONSIBILITY | REST - REUNIONS | REVENGE - REWARD | RICH (THE) - RIGHTEOUS | RIGHTS - ROLLER COASTERS | ROMANCE - RUDENESS | RULES - RUSSIA | | R | S | T | U - END | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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