#religion

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. ... These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death. ↗

— George Carlin

#politics #religion #religion

I think it's perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don't know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away. Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it's because he's ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they're responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I'd want nothing to do with them. ↗

— Philip Pullman

#religion #religion

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

You cannot exalt God and yourself at the same time. ↗

— Rick Warren

#religion #religion

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous. ↗

— David Hume

#errors #generally #only #philosophy #religion

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#christianity #come #contact #into #morality

It is straightforward—and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if he cared for humankind, he would never have given us religion. ↗

— Martin Amis

#famines #god #humans #plagues #problem-of-evil

Religion is still useful among the herd - that it helps their orderly conduct as nothing else could. The crude human animal is in-eradicably superstitious, and there is every biological reason why they should be. Take away his Christian god and saints, and he will worship something else... ↗

— H.P. Lovecraft

#mankind #organized-religion #religion #religion

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns. These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is – I repeat it – a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#criticism #religion #truth #men

The Savage interrupted him. "But isn't it natural to feel there's a God?" "You might as well ask if it's natural to do up one's trousers with zippers," said the Controller sarcastically. "You remind me of another of those old fellows called Bradley. He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons–that's philosophy. People believe in God because they've been conditioned to. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#nature