Religious Quotes - Page 209

The public schools are supported entirely, in most communities, by public funds-funds exacted not only from parents, nor alone from those who hold particular religious views, nor indeed from those who subscribe to any creed at all.

The modern public school derived from a philosophy of freedom reflected in the First Amendment ... The non-sectarian or secular public school was the means of reconciling freedom in general with religious freedom.

Most of the methods for measuring the lapse of time have, I believe, been the contrivance of monks and religious recluses, who, finding time hang heavy on their hands, were at some pains to see how they got rid of it.

I'm not religious. It's an issue, 'cause I've got two little kids, and I feel you can't grow up without knowledge of religion.

Anyway, I try to be a good guy. I try to tell the truth, but I'm not religious.

[I've gone to big stadium rock concerts at some artist's invitation], and eventually you find yourself in the room with the Radiant Being around whom all this is revolving. It's very bizarre, and it's quasi-religious, or possibly genuinely religious. Spooky. It's a spooky and interesting thing.

Religion that is imposed upon its recipients turns out to engender either indifference or resentment. Most American religious leaders have recognized that persuasion is far more powerful than coercion when it comes to promoting one's religious views. . . . Not surprisingly, then, large numbers of religious leaders have supported the Supreme Court in its prayer decisions.

I grew up, as reported, in a large family of Catholics without even a decent ration of tentativeness among the lot of us about our religious faith.

We are driven to confess that we actually care more for religion than we do for religious theories and ideas: and in merely making that distinction between religion and its doctrine-elements, have we not already relegated the latter to an external and subordinate position? Have we not asserted that "religion itself" has some other essence or constitution than mere idea or thought?

The wisest is he that knows only that he knows nothing. God only knows. We mortals are only troubled with morbid little ideas, sired by circumstance and damned by folly. The human head can absorb only the flavorings of its surroundings. We assume that our faith political and our creed religious are founded upon our reason, when they are really made for us by social conditions over which we had little control.

Repetita iuvant. Italy, a land of great saints, poets, sailors, artists, statesmen, businessmen, lawyers, intellectuals, professors, journalists, whores, gangsters, religious parasites and dickheads.

Literature can be divided into two large families: the religious and the secular one. The first reveals the origin of stupidity, the second follows its evolution.

'Come hither, my boy, tell me what thou seest there?' 'A fool tangled in a religious snare.'

Have we come to the point where it is now considered a secular blasphemy to acknowledge the name of God at all?

A City University of New York study done in 1991 revealed that nearly 90% of the American people identify themselves religiously as Christians or Jews, while only 7.5 percent claim no religion.

President Bush was widely ridiculed for consulting the Reverend Billy Graham before the Gulf war.

In the battle for preserving sound social and moral norms, many religious institutions can no longer be counted as allies.

America's only respectable form of bigotry is bigotry against religious people. And the only reason for hatred of religion is that it forces us to confront matters many would prefer to ignore.

From Samuel Adams to Patrick Henry to Benjamin Franklin to Alexander Hamilton, all the Founders intended religion to provide a moral anchor for our liberty in democracy.

It is ironic that anyone who appeals to religious values today runs the risk of being called 'divisive' or attacked as an enemy of pluralism.

The history of our nation is intertwined with a certain religious tradition, and that the First Amendment was not intended to result in the complete exclusion of religious beliefs from our public classrooms.

I have no doubt that the real irritation of those on the religious right is not that their particular creed is not embraced by the schools, but that often their creed is the only one singled out for contempt.

Freedom is won by relegating religion to a purely private sphere remote from the body politic. In fact, the establishment of a free society is predicated on the idea that religion must be surgically removed from culture.

The ACLU sues no matter what public property a religious symbol is placed on.

Removing religion from the womb of culture has become the practiced virtue of the ACLU over the past several decades.