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. . . Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. --Napoleon I (1769—1821) Emperor of France [1804—1815]. - I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth, and ignorance. I want nothing to do with any order, religious or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are capable of becoming happier and more civilized, on this earth, capable of becoming true man, master of his fate and captain of his soul. --Jawaharlal Nehru (1889—1964) Indian statesman. In Edgar Snow's _Journey to the Beginning_ [1958]. Often in history we see that religion, which was meant to raise us and make us better and nobler, has made people behave like beasts. Instead of bringing enlightenment of them, it has often tried to keep them in the dark; instead of broadening their minds, it has frequently made them narrow- minded and intolerant of others. --Jawaharlal Nehru (1889—1964) Indian statesman. - Men who fight about religion have no religion to fight about, since they do in the name of religion the thing which religion itself forbids. --Joseph Fort Newton (1878—1949) Clergyman and Masonic author. Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope. --P.J. O'Rourke (1947— ) American political satirist. - Every religion is good that teaches man to be good. --Thomas Paine [spelled Pane prior to 1774] (1737—1809) English-American writer and political pamphleteer. _Rights of Man_, pt. II, ch. 5 [1791] I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. 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 monopolise power and profit. --Thomas Paine [spelled Pane prior to 1774] (1737—1809) English-American writer and political pamphleteer. _Age of Reason_ [1794] "The Author's Profession of Faith" Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. --Thomas Paine [spelled Pane prior to 1774] (1737—1809) English-American writer and political pamphleteer. _Age of Reason_ [1794] Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other class of men, can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance. --Thomas Paine [spelled Pane prior to 1774] (1737—1809) English-American writer and political pamphleteer. _A Letter To Camille Jordan_ [1797] - Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. --Blaise Pascal (1623—1662) French mathematician, physicist, and moralist. _Pensées_ ("Thoughts"), no. 894 [1670 ed.] To be furious in religion is to be irreligiously religious. --William Penn (1644—1718) Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom who oversaw the founding of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities of Europe. 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 and gentle intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell. --Karl Popper (1902—1994) Austrian-born British philosopher of science. "Utopia and Violence" [1948] Religion to me has always been the wound, not the bandage. --Dennis Potter (1935—1994) English television dramatist. _Seeing the Blossom_ [1994] Once a ruler becomes religious, it [becomes] impossible for you to debate with him. Once someone rules in the name of religion, your lives become hell. --Muammar Qaddafi (1942— ) Libyan leader [1970— ]. October 1989 remark to the General People's Congress [Tripoli]. I am an intransigent atheist, but not a militant one. This means that I am an uncompromising advocate of reason and that I am fighting *for* reason, not *against* religion. I must also mention that I do respect religion in its philosophical aspects, in the sense that it represents an early form of philosophy. --Ayn Rand (1905—1982) Russian-born American writer. _Letters of Ayn Rand_ [20 March 1965] - Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines. --Bertrand Russell (1872—1970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown, and partly the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing — fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand-in-hand. --Bertrand Russell (1872—1970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. _Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects_ [1957] The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately. --Bertrand Russell (1872—1970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. _Sceptical Essays_ [1928] I was much cheered upon my arrival (in prison), by the warden at the gate, who had to take particulars about me. He asked my religion, and I replied, 'Agnostic.' He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh, 'Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.' --Bertrand Russell (1872—1970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. _The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1914—1944_ [1968] - - Matters of religion should never be matters of controversy. We neither argue with a lover about his taste, nor condemn him, if we are just, for knowing so human a passion. --George Santayana (1863—1952) Spanish-born philosopher and critic. _Life of Reason: Reason in Religion_ That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject. --George Santayana (1863—1952) Spanish-born philosopher and critic. _The Life of Reason_ [1905] It is not worldly ecclesiastics that kindle the fires of persecution, but mystics who think they hear the voice of God. --George Santayana (1863—1952) Spanish-born philosopher and critic. - Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.— 65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. Attributed in Ira D. Cardiff _What Great Men Think About Religion_ [1945]. Note: This has not been found in Seneca's writings. There are thousands of patients on their backs who would be made better if they were on their knees instead. --Fulton John Sheen (1895—1979) Roman Catholic bishop; the first popular preacher to appear on television. _Peace of Soul_ [1949] For in religion as in friendship, they who profess most are ever the least sincere. --Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751—1816) Anglo-Irish dramatist. _The Duenna_, III, iii [1775] Without religion the highest endowments of intellect can only render the possessor more dangerous if he be ill- disposed; if well-disposed, only more unhappy. --Robert Southey (1774—1843) English poet. _Sir Thomas More: or, Colloquies on ..._ [1831] It would be almost unbelievable, if history did not record the tragic fact that men have gone to war and cut each other's throat because they could not agree as to what was to become of them after their throats were cut. --Walter Parker Stacy (1884—1951) American jurist, quoted in Sam J. Ervin, Jr., _Humor of a Country Lawyer_ [1983] All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few. --Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle] (1783—1842) French writer. The reason we fear to go out after dark is not that we may be set upon by bands of evangelicals and forced to read the New Testament, but that we may be set upon by gangs of feral young people who have been taught that nothing is superior to their own needs or feelings. --David C. Stolinsky, "American : A Christian Country," New Oxford Review [July-August 1994] The rivers of America will run with blood filled to their banks before we will submit to them taking the Bible out of our schools. --Billy Sunday [William Ashley Sunday] (1862—1935) American evangelist. In George Seldes _The Great Thoughts_ [1985], revival meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [1912]. - We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. --Jonathan Swift (1667—1745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. _Thoughts on Various Subjects_ [1711] The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion. --Jonathan Swift (1667—1745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. Attributed in _Encyclopaedia Perthensis_ [2nd ed., 1816]. - Religion is not necessarily a good thing. It depends; religion can lead to great good, but it can equally lead to unspeakable evil and suffering. --Bishop Desmond Tutu (1931— ) South African cleric and winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. "The Secular State and Religions," _The Wisdom of Desmond Tutu_ Michael Battle, ed., [1998]. - Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion — several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _The Lowest Animal_ [1940] I will tell you a pleasant tale which has in it a touch of pathos. A man got religion, and asked the priest what he must do to be worthy of his new estate. The priest said, 'Imitate our Father in Heaven, learn to be like him.' The man studied his Bible diligently and thoroughly and understandingly, and then with prayers for heavenly guidance instituted his imitations. He tricked his wife into falling downstairs, and she broke her back and became a paralytic for life; he betrayed his brother into the hands of a sharper, who robbed him of his all and landed him in the almshouse; he inoculated one son with hookworms, another with the sleeping sickness, another with gonorrhea; he furnished one daughter with scarlet fever and ushered her into her teens deaf, dumb, and blind for life; and after helping a rascal seduce the remaining one, he closed his doors against her and she died in a brothel cursing him. Then he reported to the priest, who said that that was no way to imitate his Father in Heaven. The convert asked wherein he had failed, but the priest changed the subject and inquired what kind of weather he was having, up his way. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. "Letters from the Earth" in _Letters From the Earth_ [1962] Bernardo DeVoto {ed.} (originally written in 1909). - Jerusalem is the navel of the world, a land which is more fruitful than any other, a land which is like another paradise of delights. This is the land which the Redeemer of mankind illuminated by his coming . . . this Royal city, situated in the middle of the world, is now held captive by his enemies and is made a servant, by those who know not God, for the ceremonies of the heathen. It looks and hopes for freedom; it begs unceasingly that you will come to its aid. It looks for help from you, especially, because God has bestowed glory in arms upon you more than on any other nation. Undertake this journey, therefore, for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of “glory which cannot fade” in the kingdom of heaven. --Urban II (c. 1035—1099) Pope (1088—1099). Speech which started the First Crusade, Clermont, France [18 November 1095]. Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals. --Peter Viereck (1916—2006) American poet and historian. _Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals_, ch. 3 [1953] - The man who says to me, 'Believe as I do, or God will damn you,' will presently say, 'Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate you.' --Voltaire (François Marie Arouet) (1694—1778) French writer and philosopher. S'il n'y avoit en Angleterre qu'une religion, le despotisme seroit à craindre, s'il y en avoit deux, elles se couperoient la gorge; mais il y en a trente, et elles vivent en paix heureuses. It there were only one religion in England, there would be a danger of despotism; if there were two, they would cut each other's throats. But there are thirty, and they live happily in peace. --Voltaire (François Marie Arouet) (1694—1778) French writer and philosopher. _Lettres Philosophiques_, at the end of Letter 6 [1734] If we were permitted to reason consistently in religious matters, it is clear that we all ought to become Jews, because Jesus Christ our Savior as born a Jew, lived a Jew, died a Jew, and he said expressly that He was fulfilling the Jewish religion. --Voltaire (François Marie Arouet) (1694—1778) French writer and philosopher. "Tolerance," _Philosophical Dictionary_ The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker. --Voltaire (François Marie Arouet) (1694—1778) French writer and philosopher. This agglomeration which was called and still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire in any way. --Voltaire (François Marie Arouet) (1694—1778) French writer and philosopher. _Essai sur Ie moeurs et l'esprit des nations_ [1756] Ch. 70 - Anytime I see a person fleeing from reason and into religion, I think to myself, there goes a person who cannot stand being so goddamned lonely anymore. --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922—2007) American novelist and short-story writer. _Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage_ [1981], ch. 11 "Religion" I believe we are descendid from the Puritins, who nobly fled from a land of depitism to a land of freedim, where they could not only enjoy their own religion, but prevent everybody else from enjoyin his. --Artemus Ward [Charles Farrar Browne] (1834—1867) American humorist and writer. "Intoduction to the Club" a letter to "Punch" [1866] in _The Works of Artemus Ward_ [1898]. What a queer thing is Christian salvation! Believing in firemen will not save a burning house; believing in doctors will not make one well, but believing in a savior saves men. Fudge! --Lemuel K. Washburn Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. --George Washington (1732—1799) American general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies in the American Revolution [1775—1783] and first president of the United States [1789—1797]. In his Farewell Address [17 September 1796]. ^ Earl Weaver (1930— ) American baseball player and manager. Outfielder and born-again Christian Pat Kelly once called out to Weaver, 'You've got to walk with the Lord, Skip!' 'Hell,' replied Weaver, 'I'd rather you walked with bases loaded.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ Educate men without religion, and you make them but clever devils. --Duke of Wellington (1769—1852) British soldier and statesman. Attributed in Tryon Edwards (using pseud. Everard Berkeley) _The World's Laconics..._ [1853]. For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible. --Franz Werfel (1890—1945) German poet, playwright, and novelist. _Das Lied von Bernadette_ (The Song of Bernadette) [1941] There will shortly be no priests. I say their work is done. --Walt Whitman (1819—1892) American poet. _Leaves of Grass_ [1855—1892] "By Blue Ontario's Shore" [1856] So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind Is all the sad world needs. --Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850—1919) American author and poet. "The World's Need" I think one would go crazy if he did not believe in Providence. It would be a maze without a clue. Unless there was some supreme guidance we would despair of the results of human counsel. --Woodrow Wilson (1856—1924) American Democratic statesman and President [1913—1921]. Reply to a committee of the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, London, England [28 December 1918]. - A cult is a religion with no political power. --Tom Wolfe (1931— ) American journalist and novelist. _In Our Time_ [1980], ch. 2 "Entr'actes and Canapes" A passage from Tom Wolfe _Hooking Up_ : . . . Did any of the America-at-century's-end network TV specials strike the exuberant note that Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee struck in 1897? All I remember are voice-overs saying that for better or worse. . . hmm, hmm . . . McCarthyism, racism, Vietnam, right-wing militias, Oklahoma City, Heaven's Gate, Dr. Death. . . on balance, hmm, we're not entirely sure. . . for better or worse, America had won the cold war. . . hmm, hmm, hmm, . . . [Wolfe's ellipsis] My impression was that one American century rolled into another with all the pomp and circumstance of a mouse pad. America's great triumph inspired all the patriotism and pride (or, if you'd rather, chauvinism), all the yearning for glory and empire (or, if you'd rather, the spirit of Manifest Destiny), all the martial jubilee of a mouse click. Such was my impression; but it was only that, my impression. So I drew upon the University of Michigan's fabled public-opinion survey resources. They sent me the results of four studies, each approaching the matter from a different angle. Chauvinism? The spirit of Manifest Destiny? According to one survey, 74 percent of Americans don't want the United States to intervene abroad unless in cooperation with other nations, presumably so that we won't get all the blame. Excitement? Americans have no strong feelings about their country's supremacy one way or the other. They are lacking in affect, as the clinical psychologists say. There were seers who saw this coming even at the unabashedly pompous peak (June 22) of England's 1897 Jubilee. One of them was Rudyard Kipling, the empire's de facto poet laureate, who wrote a poem for the Jubilee, "Recessional," warning: "Lo, all our pomp of yesterday/Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!" He and many others had the uneasy feeling that the foundations of European civilization were already shifting beneath their feet, a feeling indicated by the much used adjectival compound fin-de-siecle. Literally, of course, it meant nothing more than "end-of-the-century," but it connoted something modern, baffling, and troubling in Europe. Both Nietzsche and Marx did their greatest work seeking to explain the mystery. Both used the term "decadence." But if there was decadence, what was decaying? Religious faith and moral codes that had been in place since time was, said Nietzsche, who in 1882 made the most famous statement in modern philosophy— "God is dead" — and three startlingly accurate predictions for the twentieth century. He even estimated when they would begin to come true: about 1915. (1) The faith men formerly invested in God they would now invest in barbaric 'brotherhoods with the aim of the robbery and exploitation of the non-brothers.' Their names turned out, in due course, to be the German Nazis and the Russian Communists. (2) There would be 'wars such as been never waged on earth.' Their names turned out to be World War I and World War II. (3) There no longer would be Truth but, rather, "truth" in quotation marks, depending upon which concoction of eternal verities the modern barbarian found most useful at any given moment. The result would be universal skepticism, cynicism, irony, and contempt. World War I began in 1914 and ended in 1918. On cue, as if Nietzsche were still alive to direct the drama, an entirely new figure, with an entirely new name, arose in Europe: that embodiment of skepticism, cynacism, irony, and contempt, the Intellectual. - Piety is sweet to infant minds --William Wordsworth (1770—1850) English poet. "The Excursion" [1814] - Don Juan Ponce was turned over to them [the Spanish Inquisition] so that his confession could be heard and he brought back to the Catholic faith ... He had been involved in great error and heresy — for example, that there was no purgatory, that the inquisitors were anti-Christian, that one should not believe or obey the pope ... This Don Juan was sentenced to die at the stake ... But our Lord, in His immeasurable goodness, caused him to see his error and led him back to the holy Catholic faith. He died with many tears of remorse over his sins. Indeed, still at the stake he endeavored to persuade the others to desist from their errors and to convert themselves to the holy Catholic faith and to the Roman Church. --An account of an auto-da-fé (act of faith), at Seville, southern Spain, 24 September, 1559, in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 363. Cohan & Major add: The Spanish Inquisition, designed to weed out heretics and suppress their unorthodox beliefs, had been set up, with papal approval, in the late 15th century and was very effective in preventing the spread of Protestantism into the Iberian peninsula. In 1542 Pope Paul III established the Holy Office at Rome with inquisitorial powers over all Catholics. - There was a young lady called Alice Who peed in a Catholic chalice. The padre agreed It was done out of need, And not out of Protestant malice. --anon. -- A new Barna Research poll [in 2003] says that 81% of Americans believe in an afterlife. Ten percent say there is no afterlife, and 9% aren't sure. Seventy-nine percent believe, "Every person has a soul that will live forever, either in God's presence or absence." Evangelicals, born again Christians, and those 58 and older are the most likely segments to embrace life after death; least likely are Hispanics, Busters (ages 20-38), atheists, agnostics, those associated with a faith other than Christianity, unchurched adults, and residents of the West. Seventy-six percent of Americans believe in heaven; 71% believe in hell. Forty-three percent believe they will go to heaven because they have "confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior." Fifteen percent feel they will get to heaven because "they have tried to obey the 10 Commandments" or "they are basically a good person," while 6% believe they'll get there because "God loves all people and will not let them perish." Five percent claim they will come back as another life form, while 5% believe their life will just end. --Barna Research Group [21 October 2003] - And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed." And Jesus replied, "What?" --Unknown - Remember this as long as you live: Whenever you meet up with anyone who is trying to cause trouble between people — anyone who tries to tell you that a man can't be a good citizen because of his religious beliefs — you can be sure that troublemaker is a rotten citzen himself and an inhuman being. Don't ever forget that! --Superman, "Unity House", Superman radio program [1946] - Elaine: Oh. So, you're pretty religious? David: That's right. Elaine: So is it a problem that I'm not really religious? David: Not for me. Elaine: Why not? David: I'm not the one going to hell. --dialogue,'The Burning', "Seinfeld" If God lived on earth, people would break his windows. --Jewish Proverb - Missionary: A man chosen to give ferocious cannibals their first taste of religion. Missionary: A man who teaches cannibals to say grace before they eat him. - It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. --Calvin, _Calvin and Hobbes_ - Episcopalian priest to Presbyterian minister at ecumenical dinner: "After all, we are both doing the Lord's work — you in your way, and I in His". --anon. "A philosopher," said the theologian, "is like a blind man in a darkened room looking for a black cat that isn't there." "That's right," the philosopher replied, "and if he were a theologian, he'd find it." --anon. - (BATTERED SOUL comes in, supported by two angels) GOD: In my name, what happened to you? Did you run into a comet on your way up? BATTERED SOUL: No, Lord. I'm a pacifist. GOD: A what? BATTERED SOUL: A pacifist. I believe in Jesus and peace. GOD: So you are a Christian? BATTERED SOUL: O, no. I really do believe in peace. --C. E. S. Wood, "A Pacifist Enters Heaven--In Bits," from _Heavenly Discourse_ [1927] TOPICAL Talk about wearing your faith on your sleeve. According to the Dallas Morning News, some people are making faith into a fashion statement, as they sport T-shirts with slogans ranging from the earnest ("Jesus Is My Homeboy") to the ethnic ("Meshuggenah") to the provocative ("Jesus paid for our sins, now let's get our money's worth"). Even American Muslims, the paper reports, are getting in on the T-shirt act, with one hot-seller reading: "My beard causes national security alerts, what does yours do?" --WSJ [30 July 2004] ----- apocrypha [uh-POK-ruh-fuh], noun: 1. Various religious writings of uncertain origin regarded by some as inspired, but rejected by most authorities. 2. A group of 14 books, not considered canonical, included in the Septuagint and the Vulgate as part of the Old Testament, but usually omitted from Protestant editions of the Bible. apostasy (noun) [ê-'pahs-tê-see] Renouncing faith in a cause; defecting; more broadly, rejecting the principles of a cause. ascetic (noun) [ê-'se-tik] Someone who, for spiritual reasons, rejects material comforts in favor of an austere life of abstinence and self-denial, usually as a hermit. discalced (adj.) Barefoot or wearing sandals. Used of certain religious orders. Synonyms: unshod, discalceate eremite [ER-uh-myt], noun: A hermit, especially a religious recluse. Syn: lonely, solitary, desolate. hagiography (noun) [hey-gi-'ah-grê-fi] A biography or other description of the life of a saint, usually intended as an example for others. proselytize [PROS-uh-luh-tyz], intransitive verb: 1. To induce someone to convert to one's religious faith. 2. To induce someone to join one's institution, cause, or political party. 3. To convert to some religion, system, opinion, or the like. Ex.: It has given the world an example of what hard work can do, but in general Japan prefers to focus on its own affairs and let other countries proselytize for democracy, capitalism, communism, or whatever else they believe in. --James Fallows, "Containing Japan", _The Atlantic_ [May 1989] revere (verb) [ rê-'veer] To venerate, to hold in deep, religious respect. 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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