“Haven't two hundred years of failed missionary work overseas taught anybody anything? You can't convert people to anything - whether religion, or something as inane as our flicks.”
Topic
religion
990 quotes
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“If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it.”
“I was 21 in 1968, so I'm as much a child of the '60s as is possible to be. In those years the subject of religion had really almost disappeared the idea that religion was going to be a major force in the life of our societies, in the West anyway, would have seemed absurd in 1968.”
“Religion is run by thought police. 'Obey. Listen. This is what you do. Don't ask questions. Go die for your country.' The spirituality says, 'Okay, you can die for your country, but know what you're doing while you're doing it.'”
“The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion.”
“Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.”
“Religion always remains higher than everyday life. In order to make the elevation towards religion easier for people, religion must be able to alter its forms in relation to the consciousness of modern man.”
“One person's religion is another person's cult.”
“The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms.”
“A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.”
“Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.”
“Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who think differently from him.”
“Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil's propagation.”
“Selfishness is the only real atheism unselfishness the only real religion.”
“I try to just talk about human stories and what I think about religion or teapots or whatever.”
“There was no religion in my life growing up. Did God invent us or did we invent God?”
“We from every religion feel comfortable in Britain because there is a host. The Church of England is a good host, it has been a major force in shaping England into such a tolerant society.”
“Since the 18th century, many Western intellectuals have predicted religion's imminent demise.”
“Religion survives because it answers three questions that every reflective person must ask. Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live?”
“Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good... There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighborliness.”
“Now I think one of the reasons why religion developed in the way that it did over the centuries was precisely to curb this murderous bent that we have as human beings.”
“There are some forms of religion that are bad, just as there's bad cooking or bad art or bad sex, you have bad religion too.”
“Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that it's the sine-qua-non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, what's the point of having religion if you can't disapprove of other people?”
“There are fundamentalist psychopaths in every religion in the world. Every single one.”