Religion In Society Quotes

Freedom requires religion in society, not in individuals.

Prayer is of no avail. The lightning falls on the just and the unjust in accordance with natural laws.

God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand.

What is especially important is addressing the question of how religion can be enforced through political means and what can be done to create a political environment that, on the one hand, acknowledges the role of religion in society, while on the other hand does not impose one religion on the populace at the expense of all others.

Imbalance of reason and emotion may explain the tenacity of religion in societies: world religions are optimized to tap into the emotional networks, and great arguments of reason amount to little against such magnetic pull.

All religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays.

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

Mike Huckabee and indeed many of the Christian conservatives in the U.S. have far more in common with the Muslim Brotherhood than they'd like to admit, in that all of them very much want to see a role of religion in society.

There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.

I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

Religion is the opium of the masses.

Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.

Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses.

There are many, many discrepant views within the Shia theology about what's the proper role of religion in society or in the State, should it rule now, should it claim to govern people in the here and now, or should it wait until the Messiah, the 12th Imam, comes back and would it only be then appropriate for religious rule to bring about a world of universal justice and vindication.

It was the schoolboy who said, ""Faith is believing what you know ain't so.""

Religions are all alike- founded upon fables and mythologies.

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.

But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

The God of the Old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.

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.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

For good people to do evil things, it takes religion.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.

To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.

The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

Gods are fragile things, they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.

Men rarely if ever dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

I do not believe in god because I do not believe in Mother Goose.

Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

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.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.

Let them be reassured, it has never been one of our intentions to ban religion in society, but solely to protect the national education system from any conspicuous display of religious affiliation.

For an academic to launch a public conversation about journalistic integrity, the role of religion in society, scholarship and faith is a dream come true. These are the kinds of things that we sit around talking to each other about in our dusty libraries. To see these conversations take place in popular culture is the best thing that could have ever happened.

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?

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.