#belief

What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#decency #honesty #morality #religion #religion

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. ↗

— Mark Twain

#politics #religion #religion

If you were an atheist, Birbal," the Emperor challenged his first minister, "what would you say to the true believers of all the great religions of the world?" Birbal was a devout Brahmin from Trivikrampur, but he answered unhesitatingly, "I would say to them that in my opinion they were all atheists as well; I merely believe in one god less than each of them." "How so?" the Emperor asked. "All true believers have good reasons for disbelieving in every god except their own," said Birbal. "And so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none." -- From "The Shelter of the World ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#religion

The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun. ↗

— Thomas Paine

#christian-religion #falsified #sun #worship #religion

What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives. ↗

— Sam Harris

#atheism #belief #ethics #humanism #religion

It is a better world. A place where we ate responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and becauseit is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment. ↗

— Christopher Paolini

#eragon #oromis #religion #religion

I respect you as a person too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs. ↗

— Johann Hari

#religion #respect #religion

Faith belongs to the human spirit. Faith is faith. Humanity is divided by religion, religion is the divider of humanity. If every human could be removed of their blindfolds and see that faith is in itself faith and that this is something which belongs to each and every human being, then at that time the dividers of religion will suddenly mean nothing and we will all see that we are united by faith in and of itself. There is only one faith and it is called faith. And no man needs to prove to another man that what he believes in exists, because even if it does not exist, his faith is his belief that it is there, that something is there, and that in itself is faith. So I do not need to prove to any man that what I believe in exists or not, there is no such contest between man, my faith breathes in the body of my belief; the fact that I believe is the breath of my faith. ↗

— C. JoyBell C.

#belief-quotes #faith #freedom #human-spirit #humanity

I believe in God. Maybe not the Catholic God or even the Christian one because I have a hard time seeing any God as elitist. I also have a hard time believing that anything that created rain forests and oceans and an infinite universe would, in the same process, create something as unnatural as humanity in its own image. I believe in God, but not as a he or she or an it, but as something that defines my ability to conceptualize within the rather paltry frames of reference I have on hand. ↗

— Dennis Lehane

#religion #religion

The very thought of such people’s intolerant worldview, their inflated sense of self superiority, and their callous imposition of their own beliefs on others was enough to fill her with rage. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#religion #worldview #religion