RELIGION: A set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual. — Bertrand Russell
Each religion, by the help of more or less myth, which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny. — George Santayana
Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing. — Thomas Hobbes
Religions are easy to invent. Most traditional religions have little or nothing to do with reality, are dependent on obfuscation, interpretation, guilt, and unreasoning faith. — Anton Szandor LaVey
We talk religion in a world that worships the bread but does not distribute it, that practices ritual rather than righteousness, that confesses but does not repent. — Joan D. Chittister
In terms of cultural upbringing, I'd be at the temple at the weekend - I'm a Hindu - but I'd also be at the Saints game as well on a Saturday - you do everything, you do both. — Rishi Sunak
We should worship as though the deity were present. — Confucius
Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others. — Hugo Black
Religion is too important a matter to its devotees to be a subject of ridicule. If they indulge in absurdities, they are to be pitied rather than ridiculed. — Immanuel Kant
Man is an essentially superstitious and fearful animal. Take away the herd's Christian gods and saints and they will without failing come to worship...something else. — H. P. Lovecraft
All religions are ancient monuments to superstition, ignorance and ferocity. — Baron d'Holbach
Religion is a way of walking, not a way of talking. — William Inge
We have a need to be religious, we need to worship, we need to build totems and shrines and icons, but nobody's sure in honor of what. — Robyn Hitchcock
All religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays. — Cathy Ladman
Short Religious Practices Quotes
Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities. — Emile Durkheim
Religion idolizes concepts and avoids personal experience. — Bill Johnson
Religions are all alike- founded upon fables and mythologies. — Thomas Jefferson
I've found a more personal, pagan kind of religion to satisfy the spiritual side of things. — Julian Clary
Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand — Friedrich Durrenmatt
Sweat more in practice, bleed less in war.
Religious Practices Quotes
With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists. — Antonin Scalia
The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training - sacrifice. — Douglas MacArthur
Nothing happens by accident. God is preparing you for great things.
While anyone who practices a religion has the right to their own religious truths, it doesn't give them the right to violate the welfare of another human or an animal. So, where necessary, it is the task of the government to intervene and curb the freedom of religion. — Marianne Thieme
Everyone has the right to practice their religious beliefs in private but expect that people might publicly reject said beliefs. — Gad Saad
Religious tolerance is something we should all practice; however, there have been more persecution and atrocities committed in the name of religion and religious freedom than anything else. — Walter Koenig
Success is a matter of understanding and religiously practicing specific, simple habits that always lead to success. — Robert Ringer
I support the rights of all people to practice their religious beliefs privately, but I oppose the idea of respecting religions. In truth, I have no respect for any religion. I believe religion is not compatible with human rights, women's rights, or freedom of expression. — Taslima Nasrin
The storms in my life have become workshops where I can practice my faith in God's sovereignty. — Jill Briscoe
Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them. — Martin Luther
Daily Religious Quotes
You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend. — Blaise Pascal
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. — George Bernard Shaw
Love our Lady. And she will obtain abundant grace to help you conquer in your daily struggle. — Josemaria Escriva
A cult is a religion with no political power. — Tom Wolfe
All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives. — Dalai Lama
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. — William James
Nearly everything that defines much of our daily experiences is consummatory in nature. Yes, we consume products and services. But we also consume life experiences, religious narratives, art, literature, and ideas. — Gad Saad
It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. — George William Foote
May I give you some advice for you to put into practice daily? When your heart makes you feel those low cravings, say slowly to the Immaculate Virgin: Look on me with compassion. Don't abandon me. Don't abandon me, my Mother! - And recommend this prayer to others. — Josemaria Escriva
There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes. — James K. Morrow
What Is Religion Quotes
Each person is sacred, no matter what his or her culture, religion, handicap, or fragility. Each person is created in God’s image; each one has a heart, a capacity to love and to be loved. — Jean Vanier
We should not ask, ‘What is wrong with the world?’ for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather we should ask, “What has happened to salt and light? — John Stott
The essence of America - that which really unites us - is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion - it is an idea - and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things. — Condoleezza Rice
Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be. — Frank Zappa
We are all connected. What unites us is our common humanity. I don't want to oversimplify things - but the suffering of a mother who has lost her child is not dependent on her nationality, ethnicity or religion. White, black, rich, poor, Christian, Muslim or Jew - pain is pain - joy is joy. — Desmond Tutu
It gives a message to people of love... it does not matter what's the colour of your skin, what language do you speak, what religion do you believe in. It is that we should all consider each other as human beings and we should respect each other. — Malala Yousafzai
Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right. — H. L. Mencken
Islam doesn't promote violence or peace. Islam is just a religion, and like every religion in the world, it depends on what you bring to it. If you're a violent person, your Islam, your Judaism, your Christianity, your Hinduism, is going to be violent. — Reza Aslan
I don't condemn and I don't convert. I've been searching through books and bibles to find what this life is worth, and I've made up my mind: Love is my religion. You can take it or leave it, and you don't have to believe it. Love is my religion — Ziggy Marley
Football is to Texas what religion is to a priest. — Tom Landry
Religious Rituals Quotes
I am not a believer in religious rituals. I was brought up in the Arya Samaj environment which taught us to shun rituals. Puja, of course, but simple, elegant and brief. — Dhirubhai Ambani
God's Word teaches a very hard, disturbing truth. Those who neglect the poor and the oppressed are really not God's people at all—no matter how frequently they practice their religious rituals nor how orthodox are their creeds and confessions. — Ronald J. Sider
With the advance of knowledge, therefore, prayer and sacrifice assume the leading place in religious ritual; and magic; which once ranked with them as a legitimate equal, is gradually relegated to the background and sinks to the level of a black art. — James G. Frazer
I still noticed that little streak of rebelliousness coming up in me again - the same sense of dissatisfaction I had felt earlier with the empty rituals and institutionalized values of all religious traditions. — Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
Religion is not an end in itself. One's union with God is the ultimate goal. There are so many religions because immature people tend to emphasize trivial differences instead of important likenesses. Differences between faiths lie in creeds and rituals rather than in religious principles. — Peace Pilgrim
Dance in this century has remained primarily a personal ritual operating, like most avant-garde art, as an idiosyncratic form rather than a tribal expression of religious powers or a corporate expression of societal values. — Jamake Highwater
Religious ritual is a way of structuring time so that we, not employers, the market or the media, are in control. Life needs its pauses, its chapter breaks, if the soul is to have space to breathe. — Jonathan Sacks
The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries, Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation. — Jonathan Sacks
Essentially all civilizations that rose to the level of possessing an urban culture had need for two forms of science-related technology, namely, mathematics for land measurements and commerce and astronomy for time-keeping in agriculture and aspects of religious rituals. — Frederick Seitz
If the religious experience were simply some naive impression of the uninformed it would not have resulted in such intellectual insight, such spiritual exaltation, such spectacular religious ritual, or in the immense volume of song and poetry and literature and dance that humans have produced. — Thomas Berry
Religious Traditions Quotes
To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas. — Brock Chisholm
Regrettably, many religious traditions exacerbate our innate proclivity to divide the world into two clearly demarcated camps, and in doing so, this fans the flames of intolerance and hate. — Gad Saad
The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred. — Dalai Lama
To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To you, respect. — Oren Arnold
To glorify God is not just to do so in religious worship, singing praise and enacting the traditional rites of the church. To glorify God is to reveal his character by being who we were created to be-the embodiment of the image of God in human form. — James W. Sire
Our moral, religious, and political traditions are united in their respect for the dignity of human life. — Robert Casey
The belief in a satanic kingdom exists today only where religious and theological traditions keep this believe alive. — Walter Rauschenbusch
I have a great advantage over many of my colleagues inasmuch as my students bring with them to class their own personal knowledge of national, regional, religious, ethnic, occupational, and family folklore traditions. — Alan Dundes
Testimony is an integral part of the Black religious tradition. It is the occasion where the believer stands before the community of faith in order to give account of the hope that is in him or her. — James H. Cone
The territorial state is such an ancient form of society - here in Europe it dates back thousands of years - that it is now protected by the sanctity of age and the glory of tradition. A strong religious feeling mingles with the respect and the devotion to the fatherland. — Christian Lous Lange
Religious Community Quotes
The church is not a religious community of worshippers of Christ but is Christ himself who has taken form among people. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
If believers worship with gladness and passion, anyone not yet a part of the community certainly will be attracted to the One who is the object of their worship. — Marva Dawn
The movement to abolish the death penalty needs the religious community because the heart of religion is about compassion, human rights, and the indivisible dignity of each human person made in the image of God. — Helen Prejean
In today's Britain, the weakest among us are often assumed to be minority communities. In fact, the weakest are those minorities-within-minorities for whom the legal right to exit from their communities' constraints amounts to nothing before the enforcement of cultural and religious shaming. — Maajid Nawaz
Religious liberalism affirms the moral obligation to direct one's effort toward the establishment of a just and *loving* community. — James Luther Adams
It is evident from their writings that the Founding Fathers would never have tolerated the separation that we have embraced today. They knew that religious principles provided morality and self-control - the lifeblood for the survival of any self-governing community. — David Barton
When a mentally retarded child is born, the religious question we often ask is, "Why does God let this happen?" The better question to pose is to ask, "What kind of community should we be so that mental retardation isn't a barrier to the enjoyment of one's full humanity?" — Harold S. Kushner
I will say that the power of being a stranger in someone else's religious community has its own lessons, really. It is something like the power of visiting another very happy extended family and being at their table. — Diana L. Eck
The rise of community among cultures and religious traditions makes possible what we can call 'interspirituality': the assimilation of insights, values, and spiritual practices from the various religions and their application to one's own inner life and development. — Wayne Teasdale
I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion. But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old. — Bill Nye
Spiritual Practice Quotes
Building community is to the collective as spiritual practice is to the individual. — Grace Lee Boggs
The most holy and necessary practice in our spiritual life is the presence of God. That means finding constant pleasure in His divine company, speaking humbly and lovingly with him in all seasons, at every moment, without limiting the conversation in any way. — Brother Lawrence
If we practice the science of yoga, which is useful to the entire human community and which yields happiness both here and hereafter - if we practice it without fail, we will then attain physical, mental, and spiritual happiness, and our minds will flood towards the Self. — K. Pattabhi Jois
Spiritual people are not those who engage in certain spiritual practices; they are those who draw their life from a conversational relationship with God. — Dallas Willard
You impose limits on your true nature of infinite being. Then you get displeased to be only a limited creature. Then you begin spiritual practices to transcend these non-existing limits. But if your practice itself implies the existence of these limits, how could they allow you to transcend them. — Ramana Maharshi
The realization of New Africa can only be possible by the African cultivating spiritual balance, which leads to the practicalization of social regeneration, to realizing economic determination, becoming mentally emancipated, and ushering in a political resurgence. — Nnamdi Azikiwe
You can think of spiritual practice as a kind of spiritual re-parenting ... You're offering yourself the two qualities that make up good parenting: understanding - seeing yourself for who you truly are - and relating to what you see with unconditional love. — Tara Brach
The Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu spiritual text written around 2,000 years ago, translated the breathing practice of pranayama to mean 'trance induced by stopping all breathing.' — James Nestor
The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery, and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self. — Marianne Williamson
. . . in the spiritual life you must practice. And the only way to practice is by trying to solve your problems with prayer. This develops your spiritual power and it also trains you to use that spiritual power in the most effective way. — Emmet Fox
Religious Life Quotes
When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life. — Sigmund Freud
God never takes away something from your life without replacing it with something better. — Billy Graham
Life is too short, the world is too big and God's love is too great to live ordinary. — Christine Caine
Life is the question and life is the answer, and God is the reason and love is the way. — Johnny Cash
Don't waste another moment crying over what went wrong! If it wasn't a blessing - it was a lesson. — Paula White
The motive, principle, and end of the religious life is to make an absolute gift of self to God in a self-forgetting love, to end one's own life in order to make room for God's life. — Edith Stein
When you follow God's will for your life, you can see how yesterday's events prepared you for today's challenges and tomorrow's opportunities. — David Jeremiah
O people who take pleasure in a life that will vanish, falling in love with a fading shadow is sheer stupidity — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya
Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God's help, it will continue to be. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Christ has not only spoken to us by his life but has also spoken for us by his death. — Soren Kierkegaard
Religious Belief Quotes
The less Holy Spirit we have, the more cake and coffee we need to keep the church going. — Reinhard Bonnke
The voice you believe will determine the future you experience — Steven Furtick
The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed. — James Madison
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. — Thomas Jefferson
Prayer is my chief work, and it is by means of it that I carry on the rest. — Thomas Hooker
As believers, you don't need to pray for a new heart, you need to pray for a new head. — Andrew Wommack
One's political views and/or religious beliefs should not exist in an impenetrable and inviolable bubble wherein they are protected from criticism or scrutiny. — Gad Saad
Because our ladies mostly attend Kalatshepams, (Religious discourses) they have fallen prey to the superstitions, blind beliefs, and immorality by the false and fictituous propaganda of the Brahmins. — Periyar E. V. Ramasamy
Progressives consider it laudable to criticize, mock, or insult all religious beliefs – except for the one untouchable faith. To attack Islam in the West is 'Islamophobic,' 'racist,' and 'bigoted.' — Gad Saad
Christianity is not a message which has to be believed, but an experience of faith that becomes a message. — Edward Schillebeeckx
Religious Experience Quotes
It must never be forgotten that the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is to sober up alcoholics. There is no religious or spiritual requirement for membership. No demands are made on anyone. An experience is offered which members may accept or reject. That is up to them. — Bill W.
Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. — George Washington
Learn to reverence night and to put away the vulgar fear of it, for, with the banishment of night from the experience of man, there vanishes as well a religious emotion, a poetic mood, which gives depth to the adventure of humanity. — Henry Beston
For those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into supernatural reality. In other words, for those who have a religious experience all nature is capable of revealing itself as cosmic sacrality. — Mircea Eliade
I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic, and a progressive religious experience. — Shelley Winters
I think of compassion as the fundamental religious experience and, unless that is there, you have nothing. — Joseph Campbell
I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience. — Shelley Winters
Real religion should be something that liberates men. But churches don't want free men who can think for themself and find their own divinity within. When a religion becomes organized it is no longer a religious experience but only superstition and estrangement. — Federico Fellini
The experience of the irrationality of the world has been the driving force of all religious revolution. — Max Weber
Among the most inestimable of our blessings is that ... of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support. — Thomas Jefferson
Bill Maher is right to condemn religious practices that violate fundamental human rights. Religious communities must do more to counter extremist interpretations of their faith. But failing to recognize that religion is embedded in culture — and making a blanket judgment about the world’s second largest religion — is simply bigotry. — Reza Aslan
Jesus liberated us from religion. Jesus taught simple religious practices over major theorizing. The only thoughts Jesus told us to police were our own: our own negative thoughts, our own violent thoughts, our own hateful thoughts-not other people's thoughts. — Richard Rohr
It is not only a matter, I believe, of religious observance and practice. To me, being Jewish means and has always meant being proud to be part of a people that has maintained its distinct identity for more than 2,000 years, with all the pain and torment that has been inflicted upon it. — Golda Meir
The practice of altruism is the authentic way to live as a human being, and it is not just for religious people. As human beings, our purpose is to live meaningful lives, to develop a warm heart. There is meaning in being everyone's friend. The real source of peace amongst our families, friends and neighbours is love and compassion. — Dalai Lama
Religious people love to hide behind religion. They love the rules of religion more than they love Jesus. With practice, Condemners let rules become more important than the spiritual life. — Mike Yaconelli
Our present ecological crisis, the biggest single practical threat to our human existence in the middle to long term, has, religious people would say, a great deal to do with our failure to think of the world as existing in relation to the mystery of God, not just as a huge warehouse of stuff to be used for our convenience. — Rowan Williams
Secular humanism is avowedly non-religious. It is a eupraxsophy (good practical wisdom), which draws its basic principles and ethical values from science, ethics, and philosophy. — Paul Kurtz
The religious fanatic who practices terrorism cannot be reasoned with, because there is nothing you can threaten him with, and no alternative you can offer him that is more palatable than his genuine belief that if he dies fighting you, he will be greatly rewarded in afterlife. Only swift and extreme force can stop him. — Massad Ayoob
Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity. — H. P. Lovecraft
I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don't think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths. — Jimmy Carter
As sensitive and broad-minded humans, we must never allow ourselves to be in any way judgmental of the religious practices of other people, even when these people clearly are raving space loons. — Dave Barry
We loosely talk of Self-realization, for lack of a better term. But how can one realize that which alone is real? All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding as real that which is unreal. All religious practices are meant solely to help us do this. — Ramana Maharshi
I believe in the dignity of every person. I believe that while we are all free to practice our religion, and to hold whatever religious beliefs we choose. — Martin O'Malley
If you add to or subtract from the cross, even if it is to factor in biblically mandated religious practices like prayer and evangelism, you rob God of His glory and Christ of His sufficiency. — Matt Chandler
Legalism insists on conformity to manmade religious rules and requirements, which are often unspoken but are nevertheless very real... There are far too many instances within Christendom where our traditions and rules are, in practice, more important than God's commands. — Jerry Bridges
Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton
It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints. — William James
Your love of liberty -- your respect for the laws -- your habits of industry -- and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness. — George Washington
Let me say that I don't see any conflict between science and religion. I go to church as many other scientists do. I share with most religious people a sense of mystery and wonder at the universe and I want to participate in religious ritual and practices because they're something that all humans can share. — Martin Rees
I cannot imagine how religious persons can live satisfied without the practice of the presence of GOD. For my part I keep myself retired with Him in the depth of centre of my soul as much as I can; and while I am so with Him I fear nothing; but the least turning from Him is insupportable. — Brother Lawrence
The First Amendment isn't about free thought and free opinion and free belief. The First Amendment is about free exercise: the carrying into practice of religious principles and beliefs and convictions. — Alan Keyes
As each individual is electrically alive and dynamic, so yoga is a living, dynamic force in life. In order to savor its essence, one needs a religiously attentive dynamic practice done with awareness and absorption. — B.K.S. Iyengar
What good is religious liberty if it can only be practiced behind stained-glass windows on Sunday? — Ralph E. Reed, Jr.
We were a religious, practicing, Catholic family - Mass together on Sunday, Catholic schools, and parents who practiced everything they preached. A great gift was their total absence of any derogatory talk about people of any race or culture and we were on a street of many faiths, though no other races at that early time. — Trina
I was a very religious child - I went to synagogue at least once, sometimes twice, a day. And I remember my religiousness as good - I think religion is good for children, especially educated children, because it allows for imagination, a whole imaginative world apart from the practical world. — Yehuda Amichai
I carried it (a revolver) religiously and during the summer I asked a friend, a man who had been one of Franklin's bodyguards in New York State, to give me some practice in target shooting so that if the need arose I would know how to use the gun. — Eleanor Roosevelt
It is absolutely vital that we do all we can to allow Americans to practice their religious ways, while simultaneously ensuring that no one's beliefs infringe upon those of others. We should also serve as champions of freedom of religion throughout the world. — Benjamin Carson
With each passing year, people of faith grow increasingly distressed by the hostility of public institutions toward religious expression. We have witnessed the steady erosion of the time-honored rights of religious Americans - both as individuals and as communities - to practice what they believe in the public square. — Ralph E. Reed, Jr.
Demagogues are so easy to identify. They gesture a lot and speak with pulpit rhythms, using words that ring of religious fervour and god-fearing sincerity. Sincerity with nothing behind it takes so much practice. The practice can always be detected. Repetition. Great attempts to keep your attention on words. — Frank Herbert
Fathers, I do not practice. I'm not religious in life, but when I perform "The Creation of the World" and when my soul is touched by the confrontation of "Good and Evil," then God enters in me. — Marcel Marceau
It is clear that there needs to be a closer working relationship between the United States and India. How can we have a close relationship if decision-makers in Washington know very little, if anything, about the religious beliefs, values, and practices of India's 800 million Hindus? — Tulsi Gabbard
Storytelling has driven faith and religious practice, keeping them alive for millennia. Just as every hymn, icon, and stained-glass window in a church links to a story, brands have the potential to build holistic identities. — Martin Lindstrom
In Conclusion
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