The purpose of all major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts. ~Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
There's something in every atheist, itching to believe, and something in every believer, itching to doubt. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life. ~John Updike, Self-Consciousness, 1989
A religion without the element of mystery would not be a religion at all. ~Edwin Lewis
It is doubtless true that religion has been the world's psychiatrist throughout the centuries. ~Karl Menninger
Religion is the metaphysics of the masses. ~Arthur Schopenhauer
All religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays. ~Cathy Ladman
No religion is a true religion that does not make men tingle to their finger tips with a sense of infinite hazard. ~William Ernest Hocking
The church is the great lost and found department. ~Robert Short
I speak not of men's creeds - they rest between
Man and his Maker.
~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet. ~Thomas Merton
God made so many different kinds of people. Why would he allow only one way to serve him? ~Martin Buber
All religions must be tolerated... for... every man must get to heaven his own way. ~Frederick the Great
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. ~Dalai Lama
People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Most men's anger about religion is as if two men should quarrel for a lady that neither of them care for. ~George Savile, Marquess de Halifax
Most sermons sound to me like commercials - but I can't make out whether God is the Sponsor or the Product. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstances. ~Theodore Dreiser, 1941
I like the silence of a church, before the service begins better than any preaching. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
All men have need of the gods. ~Homer
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it. ~George Bernard Shaw
Philosophy is the love of wisdom: Christianity is the wisdom of love. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
Businesses may come and go, but religion will last forever, for in no other endeavor does the consumer blame himself for product failure. ~Harvard Lamphoon, "Doon" (paraphrase)
Follow Descartes! Do not give up the religion of your youth until you get a better one. ~Martin H. Fischer
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. ~Seneca the Younger
No man treats a motor car as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin, he does not say, "You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go." He attempts to find out what is wrong and set it right. ~Bertrand Russell, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?
My religious position: I think that God could do a lot better, and I'm willing to give Him the chance. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
Religion often gets credit for curing rascals when old age is the real medicine. ~Austin O'Malley
If there were no God, there would be no Atheists. ~G.K. Chesterton
The whole point of Christianity is that everyone in the world, from Charles Manson to Mother Teresa, deserves to go to hell. ~Sean Ningen
Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair. ~G.K. Chesterton
Christianity is not being destroyed by the confusions and concussions of the time; it is being discovered. ~Hugh E. Brown
A faith of convenience is a hollow faith. ~M*A*S*H, Father Mulcahy, "A Holy Mess," 1982
The churches must learn humility as well as teach it. ~George Bernard Shaw, St. Joan
I considered atheism, but there weren't enough holidays. ~Author Unknown
A religion can no more afford to degrade its Devil than to degrade its God. ~Havelock Ellis
This is a little prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state. I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they might as well have a nice prayer like this: Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day as we forgive those who so proudly we hail. Crown thy good into temptation but deliver us from the twilight's last gleaming. Amen and Awomen. ~George Carlin
Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat. ~John Morley
In church, sacred music would make believers of us all - but preachers can be counted on to restore the balance. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
How orderly philosophical is the landscape, are all the inhabitants of this World! It is the creation of a god who "ever plays the geometer." ~Aldous Huxley, "Music at Night"
Man is a 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. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven. ~Mark Twain
Traveler: "God has been mighty good to your fields, Mr. Farmer."
Farmer: "You should have seen how he treated them when I wasn't around."
~Author Unknown
I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. ~Doug McLeod
I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents become better people as a result of practicing it. ~Joe Mullally
According to science, the universe began as a swirl of gas that, as it cooled, spun off the Ten Commandments. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism. ~William James
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. ~Anne Lamott
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. ~Ambrose Bierce
Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soul-less conditions. It is the opium of the people. ~Karl Marx, "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," 1884
I believe in God; I just don't trust anyone who works for him. ~Author unknown, from a stand-up comedy routine on television
There are three religious truths: 1) Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. 2) Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith. 3) Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or at Hooters. ~Author Unknown
Not all religion is to be found in the church, any more than all knowledge is found in the classroom. ~Author Unknown
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. ~Author Unknown
Were the purportings of the Bible to be a revelation false, it would still be the truest book that was ever written. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane. ~Robert G. Ingersoll
It is fear that first brought gods into the world. ~Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon
If triangles had a God, He'd have three sides. ~Old Yiddish Proverb
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. ~Richard Burton
Religion is a fashionable substitute for Belief. ~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~Stephen Roberts
I'm not religious, but I like God and he likes me. ~Tony Kushner, Angels in America
