Religions are not revealed: they are evolved. If a religion were revealed by God, that religion would be perfect in whole and in part, and would be as perfect at the first moment of its revelation as after ten thousand years of practice. There has never been a religion which fulfills those conditions.
All the men of the Old Testament were polygamists, and Christ and Paul, the central figures of the New Testament, were celibates, and condemned marriage by both precept and example.
A cult is a religion with no political power.
The winter moon becomes a companion, the heart of the priest, sunk in meditation upon religion and philosophy, there in the mountain hall, is engaged in a delicate interplay and exchange with the moon; and it is this of which the poet sings.
I would have met Jesus sooner if not for Christians who led double lives.
A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.
I don't have any religion. I'm Hebrew by nationality. My religion is just God. I have no religion, I just believe in the Most High.
If faith is a valid tool of knowledge, then anything can be true 'by faith,' and therefore nothing is true. If the only reason you can accept a claim is by faith, then you are admitting that the claim does not stand on its own merits.
My personal religion peremptorily forbids me to hate anybody.
It was when I was happiest that I longed most. . . The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing. . . to find the place where all the beauty came from.
Science is. . . a powerful way, indeed - to study the natural world. Science is not particularly effective. . . in making commentary about the supernatural world. Both worlds, for me, are quite real and quite important. They are investigated in different ways. They coexist. They illuminate each other.
If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable.
Without religion the highest endowments of intellect can only render the possessor more dangerous if he be ill disposed; if well disposed, only more unhappy.
The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing.
The knife of historical relativism. . . which has cut to pieces all metaphysics and religion must also bring about healing.
My objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and, I might add, infinitely absurd.
Images have an advanced religion; they bury history.
In proportion to its power, Protestantism has been as persecuting as Catholicism.
Do not dare not to dare.
I even agree that the concept of god helps some people lead better lives. That does happen. Don't ever forget it. I just think there are better ways to help people lead better lives.