QUOTES ON RELIGION
Chosen examples are never serious evidence for any worthwhile generalization.
The evolution of the capacity to simulate seems to have culminated in subjective consciousness. Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain's simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself.
selfgene.html" Rough exerpts from the book: "The Selfish Gene", by Richard Dawkins.
29 million Americans describe themselves as non-religious, secular, atheistic, or agnostic. ~Dawkins: "A Devil's Chaplin"
Madison, in his Memorial and Remonstrance of 1785: "Experience witnesses that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries, the legal establishment of Christianity has been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
"...to limit ourselves to the familiar is a crime against our minds." ~ROGER EBERT (Yes, the film critic)
For sure, a conviction in the reasonableness and comprehensibility of the world, in kinship with religious feelings, is at the basis of all the most elegant scientific work. --Albert Einstein
Science is not only compatible with spirituality, it is a profound source of spirituality. --Carl Sagan
"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." ~Bertrand de Jouvenel [This applies to church gov'ts, as well. JKH]
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
. . "Beware the man of a single book."
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt." -Bertrand Russell.
Fantastic doctrines require unanimity of belief. One dissenter casts doubt on the creed of millions. Thus the fear and the hate; thus the torture chamber, the iron stake, the gallows, the labor camp, the psychiatric ward. --Edward Abbey
I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. -Albert Einstein
Ecology and spirituality are fundamentally connected, because deep ecological awareness, ultimately, is spiritual awareness. --Fritjof Capra (Author of The Tao of Physics)
Faith is believing in what you know isn't true. ~Arthur C. Clarke. 1917-
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. ~Galileo Galilei. 1564-1642
"The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a person only tells them with all his might." ~Mark Twain.
Homosexuals are "brute beasts...part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven." ~Jerry Falwell
"When religion sanctifies hatred, it lends to that hatred a special ferocity. Normal moral inhibitors are erased." ~Johannes Cardinal Wildebrands.
"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image, if it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." ~Anne Lamott
Even though they grow weary and wear themselves out with child-bearing, it does not matter; let them go on bearing children till they die --that is what they are there for. -Martin Luther, Works 20.84
"Humanity's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe." ~Euripides
"Incredible claims require incredible evidence." Was Hume's statement, not Carl Sagan's. Sagan merely (tho properly) changed "incredible" to "extraordinary". Basically, the further an idea strays from Occam's Razor, the more evidence is needed to convince one of its plausibility.
"The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear." --Herbert Agar
"Truth in matters of religion is simply the opinion that has survived." ~Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." ~Delos B. McKown, Ph.D. U.S. professor, philosopher, author Former clergyman
"Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth." ~Ludwig Borne
"Not only is there nothing to be gained by believing an untruth, but there is everything to lose when we sacrifice the indispensable tool of reason on the altar of superstition." -- Freedom From Religion Foundation
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone ever discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." -- Douglas Adams
"I am treated as evil by those who feel persecuted because they are not allowed to force me to believe as they do."
The scientist yearns to find and eventually know the truth;
The religious man wants the truth to fit his preconceived mold. So, as a result... The scientist alters his perception to conform to the facts; The religious man tries to change the facts to conform to his beliefs.
"To become educated is to move from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty." -- Sources unknown
"To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own."
-- Lionel Strachey (1864-1927) Briitish writer, translator, humorist
"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits." -- Dan Barker Former evangelist, author, critic
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means." --George Bernard Shaw
A 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments." -- Ayn Rand
JKH: What an idea! That God --the supposed omni-everything-- made very imperfect people who, nevertheless, have the power to change God's mind if they pray long and hard and often enough!
"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense." ~Robert A. Heinlein
"I'm sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don't think there's any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock." ~Howard Stern
"Science is not the affirmation of a set of beliefs but a process of inquiry aimed at building a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation.
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