Religious Quotes - Page 150

The country and culture commonly known as "America" had had a badly split personality all through its history. Its overt laws were almost always puritanical for a people whose covert behavior tended to be Rabelaisian; its major religions were all Apollonian in varying degrees---its religious revivals were often hysterical in a fashion almost Dionysian.

You can be very religious and invoke the name of God and be able to quote lots of verses and be well versed in complicated theological systems and yet not be a person who sees. It’s one thing to sing about God and recite quotes about God and invoke God’s name; it’s another be aware of the presence in every taste, touch, sound, and embrace. With Jesus, what we see again and again is that it’s never just a person, or just a meal, or just an event, because there’s always more going on just below the surface.

Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.

There is in fact a controversy over Darwin's theory. Clearly both theories have religious implications. But this is not about God.

I believe in mystery and multiplicity. To religious believers this may sound almost pagan. But I don't think so.

Religious belief has made me comfortable with ambiguity.

Our Constitution recognises no other power than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observances.

It is not the legitimate province of the Legislature to determine which religion is true, or what false. Our government is a civil, and not a religious institution.

What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small.

Among all the religious persecutions with which almost every page of modern history is stained, no victim ever suffered but for violation of what Government denominated the law of God. To prevent a similar train of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely withheld from our Government the power of defining the divine law.

I speak as a private citizen and not as a representative of the Executive Branch of the United States government. The impression that people of faith are uniformly opposed to stem-cell research is not documented by surveys. In fact, many people of strong religious conviction think this can be a morally supportable approach.

It doesn't hurt my feeling when I get vilified by fundamentalist religious people. I've actually made comedy out of it. I've made light of that.

Religion is unusual among divisive labels in being spectacularly unnecessary. If religious beliefs had any evidence going for them, we might have to respect them in spite of their concomitant unpleasantness. But there is no such evidence. To label people as death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real world politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited by archangels, demons and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.

It is interesting to ask whether there's any general reason why being religious might make you do nice things or indeed nasty things. It's possible that people do nice things because they're religious. One reason might be they're hoping for a reward in Heaven, which is not a very noble reason.

Are science and religion converging? No. There are modern scientists whose words sound religious but whose beliefs, on close examination, turn out to be identical to those of other scientists who straightforwardly call themselves atheists.

Religious organisations have an automatic tax-free charitable status.

Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops.

I think the important thing to learn is that we can retain a sentimental loyalty to the cultural and literary traditions of, say, Judaism, Anglicanism or Islam, and even participate in religious rituals such as marriages and funerals, without buying into the supernatural beliefs that historically went along with those traditions. We can give up belief in God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage.

In Holland, they have come to precisely the same conclusion. There they have adopted a system of secular education, because they have found it impracticable to unite the religious bodies in any system of combined religious instruction.

I confess that for fifteen years my efforts in education, and my hopes of success in establishing a system of national education, have always been associated with the idea of coupling the education of this country with the religious communities which exist.

I consider myself a religious person. God is something very personal with me and I don't flaunt religion in conversation with others.

Some religions believe that there's a hierarchy, that you don't have a connection, but you must go through the shaman or the priest or whoever the religious leader is. And that's what surprises me, that some people who find a huge value in these kinds of systems also seem to enjoy ILLUSIONS. I can't figure it out.

I know that my voice has entered into the hearts of many people and has caused beautiful reactions. Some, hearing me sing, have become more religious; some who were ill felt joy; friends, while in hospital, played my tapes whenever they felt ill; they all said that my voice gave them the strength needed to stand the pain. Therefore, how can I not be thankful for this great gift?

I don't know whether any religious leader would say that we must ultimately win, because we're on God's side. If they do say that, it's bad religion.

What is remarkable about the Greeks - even pre-philosophically - is that despite the salience of religious rituals in their lives, when it came to the question of what it is that makes an individual human life worth living they didn't look to the immortals but rather approached the question in mortal terms. Their approaching the question of human mattering in human terms is the singularity that creates the conditions for philosophy in ancient Greece, most especially as these conditions were realized in the city-state of Athens.