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Religion Quotes and Quotations
 A firm belief atthracts facts. They come out iv holes in the ground an' cracks in th' wall to support belief, but they run away fr'm doubt.  Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day. A minister is coming down every generation nearer and nearer to the common level of the useful citizen - no oracle at all, but a man of more than average moral instincts, who if he knows anything, knows how little he knows. After all, what's a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority. Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed. - Voltaire He was of the faith chiefly in the sense that the Church he currently did not attend was Catholic. As for future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities. Heathen, n. A beknighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel. I'm not really a Jew; just Jew-ish, not the whole hog. If you can't believe in God the chances are your God is too small. It is extremely difficult for a Jew to be converted, for how can he bring himself to believe in the divinity of - another Jew? Man is a venerating animal. He venerates as easily as he purges himself. When they take away from him the gods of his fathers, he looks for others abroad. My own mind is my own church. One's religion is whatever he is most interested in. Religion is the way we honour our ancestors' errors. The church exists for the sake of those outside it. The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own. The idea that He would take his attention away from the universe in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds is just so unlikely I can't go along with it. The Pope is barely Catholic enough for some converts. The test for a prophet is in the Bible. It is this. "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken." The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting and retain them without preaching are Wealth, Health and Power. To tolerate everything is to teach nothing. We are a rather big-headed little species in a vast cosmos which can do without us very well. When people cease to believe in God, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything. Zen is a way of liberation, concerned not with discovering what is good or bad or advantageous, but what is. 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. The good news is that Jesus is coming back. The bad news is that he's really pissed off. - Bob Hope The merit claimed for the Anglican Church is that, if you let it alone, it will let you alone. Most people believe that the Christian commandments are intentionally a little too severe - like setting a clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning. Three things are good in little measure and evil in large: yeast, salt and hesitation. Mystic: a person who is puzzled before the obvious, but who understands the non-existent. Faith means intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person. Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it, anything but live for it. I have never yet met a healthy person who worries very much about his health or a really good person who worries much about his own soul. Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will, and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words. The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. Nothing in human life, least of all in religion, is ever right until it is beautiful. I think if you ask people what their concept of heaven is, they would say, if they are honest, that it is a big department store, with new things every week - all the money to buy them, and maybe a little more than the neighbours. We have grasped the mystery of the atom, and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Religion is a great force - the only real motive force in the world; but you must get at a man through his own religion, not through yours. It must require an inordinate share of vanity and presumption after enjoying so much that is good and beautiful on earth, to ask the Lord for immortality in addition to it all. Oysters are more beautiful than any religion . . . there's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster. - Saki Don't be agnostic - be something. A gentle Quaker, hearing a strange noise in his house one night, got up and discovered a burglar busily at work. He went and got his gun, came back and stood quietly in the doorway. 'Friend,' he said, 'I would do thee no harm for the world, but thou standest where I am about to shoot.' We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs - we have no place to go. Religion is a way of walking, not a way of talking. Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy. The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful, and has nobody to thank. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain agnostic. Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits. For the wonderful thing about saints is that they were human. They lost their tempers, got angry, scolded God, were egotistical or testy or impatient in their turns, made mistakes and regretted them. Still they went on doggedly blundering toward heaven. Audible at five miles, painful at three, and lethal at one. With soap baptism is a good thing. When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life. The Church of England is the Tory party at prayer. A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves what everyone else believes. While I cannot be regarded as a pillar, I must be regarded as a buttress of the church, because I support it from outside. Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of Man. There's no reason to bring religion into it. I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible. If the thunder is not loud, the peasant forgets to cross himself. Religion is the opiate of the people. Infidel, n: in New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentlemen were brutal savages in an unknown land, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague possibilities. My theology, briefly, Is that the universe Was dictated But not signed. My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests. There is a crack in everything God has made. Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it. The voice of the people is the voice of God. (Vox populi, vox dei.) I'm not ok - you're not ok, and that's ok. Men prefer to believe that they are degenerated angels, rather than elevated apes. Let's all give God a great big hand. I've seen the last page of the bible and it's going to turn out all right. You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian. If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. There is a good deal too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened. Life has a practice of living you if you don't live it. If only God would give me a clear sign, like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank. If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. You want to make God laugh? Tell him your future plans. I have a hard time believing that billions of years ago two protozoa bumped into each other under a volcanic cesspool and evolved into Cindy Crawford. I do benefits for all religions. ... I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality. - Bob Hope My ancestors wandered lost in the wilderness for forty years because even in biblical times men would not stop to ask directions. The Ten Commandments don't tell you what you ought to do: They only put ideas into your head. Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in. I generally avoid temptation, unless I can't resist it. - Mae West A church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. There are no atheists on turbulent airplanes. I wanted to become an atheist but I gave it up. They have no holidays. An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. I know what I'm giving up for Lent: my New Year's resolutions. Many families think of church as if it was a convention - they send one delegate. When something good happens, it's a miracle, and you should wonder what God is saving up for you later. The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people. To all things clergic I am allergic. It's clear why they only served bread and wine at the Last Supper. It was a potluck . . . organized by men. When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me. B.I.B.L.E. = Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. If I could only see one miracle, just one miracle. Like a burning bush, or the seas part, or my uncle Sasha pick up a check. If there's a God, why are there such things as famine and The Jerry Springer Show. The first Sunday I sang in the church choir, two hundred people changed their religion. I don't fly on account of my religion. I'm a devout coward. If you can't be kind, at least be vague. God created man and then woman, but the atheist created himself. What if the meek inherited the Earth and we had to defend ourselves from Martians? Jesus was born on a bank holiday and died on a bank holiday. We can therefore assume that when he returns again it will also be on a bank holiday. As the little boy said to the Sunday School teacher after being told the reason we are on Earth is to help others: "Then what are the others here for?" God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things. It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand. I didn't want to pray to God 'cause I didn't want him to know where I was. Conscience gets a lot of credit that belongs to cold feet. A New England conscience doesn't keep you from doing anything; it just keeps you from enjoying it. Conscience: That which makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does. His clear conscience is a result of a poor memory. Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. The world's shortest sermon: "When in doubt... don't!" A Puritan is a person who lives in the fear that someone, somewhere, may be having a good time. My wife converted me to religion. I never believed in hell until I married her. The service we render others is really the rent we pay for our room on Earth. Coincidence is God's way of performing miracles anonymously. I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons. I don't see why religion and science can't get along. What's wrong with counting our blessings with a computer? There was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth. One religion is as true as another. His religion at best is an anxious wish, - like that of Rebelais, a great Perhaps. Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but - live it. Religion, if in heavenly truths attired, Needs only to be seen to be admired. If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it? A good life is the only religion. My creed is this: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to help make others so. To be of no Church is dangerous. Religion is the opium of the people. Religion is nothing else but love to God and man. He that hath no cross deserves no crown. The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. 
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