Religion Quotes
The only foundation for . . . a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.
Benjamin Rush
I dislike The Exorcist, and I found it a warning sign of the dangers in a furious cinematic talent putting the audience through it (a Hitchcock phrase) without purpose, or without the nagging moral anxiety that activated Hitch. You see, I don't think William Friedkin believes in the Devil, or cares about him. I think he found exorcism a pretext for a gross-out and he calculated there was an audience for it, or a crowd ready to be challenged. Maybe I'm too much of an atheist to stand religion being so thrashed.
Edward Jay Epstein
In his address of 19 September 1796, given as he prepared to leave office, President George Washington spoke about the importance of morality to the country's well-being: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. . . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. . . . Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue?
George Washington
What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.
Flannery O'Connor
When I meet a new person, I don’t see race or religion. I look deeper. We must learn to satisfy our conflicts peacefully and to respect one another.
Muhammad Ali
One authoritative account is given by the psychologist Richard Bentall in an article titled “Hallucinatory Experiences.”15 Bentall says that the first real attempt to see whether it was possible for people to have nonveridical visions without suffering from physical or mental illness came at the end of the nineteenth century. A man named H. A. Sidgewick interviewed 7,717 men and 7,599 women and found that 7.8 percent of the men and 12 percent of the women reported having had at least one vivid hallucinatory experience. The most common vision was of a living person who was not present at the time. A number of the visions involved religious or supernatural content. The most common visions were reported by people who were twenty to twenty-nine years old.
Bart Ehrman
You a Catholic, Harry?” O’Neill asked. “I was. Can’t see it any more.” “You know something?” O’Neill offered after a pause. “Religion is for punks and old folks. When you’re a punk you need it because you don’t know any better and it straightens you up. And when you’re old you need it for comfort before you check out. But in between it’s no good.
Anton Myrer
Science should be taught not in order to support religion and not in order to destroy religion. Science should be taught simply ignoring religion.
Steven Weinberg
A crying need for wisdom and discernment emerges in an era of too much information. What do we discover as we attempt to see through technology, to assess the promises it offers? Technology has become an alternative religion. It has distinct values, celebrated saints, and rites of passage. We sacrifice our privacy in exchange for services. Our passions become quantifiable, often reducing us to a target market or a call to monitor. This conclusion will focus on the eschatology of technology. What does all the efficiency point to? Where does a world of smaller, faster, and smarter gadgets lead?
Craig Detweiler
The true religion of Jesus Christ our Saviour is that which penetrates, and which receives all the warmth of the heart, and all the elevation of the soul, and all the energies of the understanding, and all the strength of the will.
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley