#eli

Nothing optional—from homosexuality to adultery—is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishments) have a repressed desire to participate. As Shakespeare put it in King Lear, the policeman who lashes the whore has a hot need to use her for the very offense for which he plies the lash. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#closeted #homosexuality #hypocrisy #prohibition #religion

There is nothing more irreligious than self-absorbed religion. ↗

— J.I. Packer

#self-centeredness #religion

To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#organized-religion #religion #religion

If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#god #religion #religion

If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#religion

One of the greatest tragedies in mankind's entire history may be that morality was hijacked by religion. ↗

— Arthur C. Clarke

#organized-religion #religion #religion

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#skepticism #religion

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries. ↗

— James Madison

#organized-religion #politics #religion #separation-of-church-and-state #religion

The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts. ↗

— Dalai Lama XIV

#religion

Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, Voltaire was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#atheist #god #noremorse #religion #religion