Quotes About Religion and Churches

Need more quotes? Extracts from books on Religion

Religion

"May your god go with you" (Dave Allen)

I don't believe in astrology. I'm a sagittarian and they're very skeptical.

In 1906 Albert Schweitzer observed that when people write lives of Jesus they inevitably end up describing themselves.

We preach peace, forgiveness, tolerance and love. We practice vengeance, persecution, hatred and domination. My personal beliefs are supported and validated by my convictions. Oh, and never forget .... my religion is truth, yours is a lie.

Most people do not live their lives as though they seriously expected to be judged after death.

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that mine is also.

"You can't say something is 'real', and then claim it exhibits none of the properties of any other real objects, and can't ever be examined or analyzed empirically. That's pretty much a good definition of 'not real'" PZ Myers

You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. I think that the worst you can say about him is that, basically, he’s an underachiever.(Woody Allen in film Love and Death)

A casual stroll through any lunatic asylum teaches you that deep unwavering belief means nothing.

When under duress, many may take comfort in a religious text, or through the escapism found in a fantasy novel. (But, I repeat myself.)

All religious stories are the same. Men, thousands of years ago, trying to understand how the world worked. And when they didn't understand, they invented a supernaturasl explanation.

If you're following the news, you know that the major religions differ in their interpretation of the holy books. For example, one way to interpret God's will is that you should love your neighbor. An alternate reading of the holy books might lead you to rig a donkey cart with small mortar rockets and aim it at a hotel full of infidels. In summary, po-tay-to, poh-tah-to. Religions are very flexible. Scott Adams

“Religious truth” bears the same resemblance to “truth” that “homeopathic medicine” bears to “medicine,” “creation science” bears to “science,” or “Fox News” bears to “news.” — Richard S. Russell

A cult is a religion with no political power. A religion is a cult that succeeded.

Cult: a small unpopular religion. Religion: a large popular cult.

The difference between a cult and a religion is that the latter is old. Like, stepping into a pile of dogshit makes you curse, but stepping into a pile of dinosaur shit makes you famous. Despite both being crap.

Texans/Evangelists grow up believing two things. One, God loves you and he's going to send you to Hell. Two, sex is nasty, dirty and shameful, and you should save it for the one you love.

Are you religious?
- No I'm Church of England

Puritanism is the nagging fear that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying themselves.

Moral indignation is 2% moral, 48% indignation, and 50% envy.

Here is the church, here is the steeple, look inside and ... yeah, not as popular as it used to be, is it?

A mythology is someone else's religion, different enough from your own for its absurdity to be obvious.

There are ten church members by inheritance for every one by conviction.

I don't understand reality, so I believe that behind it all there's an invisible man pulling invisible strings.

Science without religion is lame: religion without science is blind.

When you believe in an imaginary figure that only you can see or hear, it's called a psychological problem. If you believe in an imaginary figure that you can't even see or hear, it's a religion.

It seems odd that those who scoff at sun worshipers are apt to worship a vacuum.

Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.(Hitchens)

“God is a comedian playing to an audience that's too afraid to laugh.” ~ Voltaire

"Is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's blunders?" ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

"Somebody should tell Jerry Falwell that God is an Independent ... he's not rich enough to be a Republican." ~ Bob Hope

"Test your faith.......drive with your eyes closed."

Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real. Religion is believing that other peoples' hallucinations are real.

Religious wars are basically people killing each other over who has the better imaginary friend.

Jewish sayings is “Many people worry about their own stomachs and the state of other people’s souls. The real task is to do the opposite: to worry about other people’s stomachs and the state of your own soul.”

Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based. Ambrose Bierce

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

A fanatic is a man who does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case.

"I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness."

If education can destroy your faith, it's not God you're praying to, it's ignorance.

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.

Freedom is the Distance Between Church and State.

"I want freedom from religion."

"Organized religion is like organized crime; it preys on peoples' weaknesses, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost impossible to eradicate."

The progress that's made... in any argument or in any discussion is by confrontation. That's a dialectical fact. People say oh let's have less heat and more light, fatuously. There's only one source of light. It happens to be heat.(Hitchens)

An archbishop is a Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.

Exploring the universe through meditation is like studying human relationships through masturbation.

Fantastic doctrines (like Christianity or Islam or Marxism) require unanimity of belief. One dissenter casts doubt on the creed of millions. Thus the fear and the hate; thus the torture chamber, the iron stake, the gallows, the labor camp, the psychiatric ward.

"I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald, I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."(Terry Pratchett Unseen Academicals)

The Christian religion doesn’t really base itself on what Jesus taught, particularly in the modern Evangelical megachurches. They have him more as a mascot on t-shirts to prove they’re on the winning team.(Mark Russell, author of God Is Disappointed in You and Apocrypha Now)

Gods are immortal but not eternal. Ancient Greek saying.

"The great god Ra, whose shrine once covered acres, is filler now for crossword puzzle makers.

All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.

Isn't it a remarkable coincidence almost everyone has the same religion as their parents ? And it always just happens to be the right religion. Religions run in families. If we'd been brought up in ancient Greece we would all be worshiping Zeus and Apollo. If we had been born Vikings we would be worshiping Wotan and Thor. How does this come about? Through childhood indoctrination.

Chance: God's pseudonym when he doesn't want to sign his work.

Perhaps the most lasting pleasure in life is the pleasure of not going to church.

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.

“Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.” - Terry Pratchett

The idea of an omnipotent God who creates a creature capable of reason, then throws an eternal hissy fit when that creature doesn't spend all his time telling God how wonderful He is... Well it seems like rather insecure behavior for an all powerful, all loving being."

"Religion doesn't come from God, it comes from your parents.

"If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument." — Bertrand Russell.

'You can't judge God by the same standards as man'. In that case, why is it that I keep getting told that God is good? Are there two meanings of the word 'good', one of which forbids murder, deliberate starvation, infecting people with disease, and so on, and another which allows these things? I suggest that there is already a word for the second meaning. That word is 'evil'. If you think that it's OK to worship an evil god, that's your business, but you can't expect me to do the same.

If this is your god, he's not very impressive. He's got psychological problems. He's so insecure, he demands worship every seven days. He creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He's a pretty poor excuse for a supreme being.

The greater your ignorance, the more evidence you have for the existence of God.

The only difference between God and Adolf Hitler is that God is more proficient at genocide.

No actual tyrant known to history has ever been guilty of one-hundredth of the crimes, massacres, and other atrocities attributed to the Deity in the Bible.

Read your bible christian. Beginning to end. Old and new testament and tell me your god isn't a murderous psychopath instituting insane and arbitrary laws and demanding adoration under threat of violence. Your god is an evil god." — Nadaka.

We question your beliefs because you are too afraid of a vengeful fictional character to do it yourself.

A zealot's stones will break my bones, but gods will never hurt me.

Interesting that with all the discussion as to whether God is male or female, no even ever questions the gender of Satan.

I threw out all the bath water, and there was no baby there.

There is enough of heaven in a hedgerow, and enough of hell in the perfidy of man.(Shakespeare)

The Bible has been interpreted to justify such evil practices as, for example, slavery, the slaughter of prisoners of war, the sadistic murders of women believed to be witches, capital punishment for hundreds of offenses, polygamy, and cruelty to animals. It has been used to encourage belief in the grossest superstition and to discourage the free teaching of scientific truths. We must never forget that both good and evil flow from the Bible. It is therefore not above criticism.

Rose from the dead? Nah, his buddies moved the body, how hard is it really, the Sopranos did it all the time.

Assume I am the leader on a country. I invade a neighboring country and conquer it. I order all the men killed. I order all the boys killed. I have all the women checked for virginity, those that aren't I have killed. The remaining virgin girl children I split up and let my soldiers do to them what they will, keeping a good portion of the best looking ones for my own use. The question is: Under what circumstances would it be good and moral to do the above? And the answer is: Because God commanded it. I'm sure you are hoping for another holy war, so you can finally get laid.

More importantly, the biblical flood story portrays YHWH as an evil fuck-up. Why bother with a flood when he could just wish the evildoers out of existence? Why drown all the world's babies and kittens? Why didn't this solution to the problem of evil actually work ???

No amount of belief makes something a fact.

It's hard to accept 'we don't fully know yet', but it's a much better answer than 'god'.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion." Arthur C. Clarke

"I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it."

The difference between a church and a cult: At the top of every religion there is somebody who knows it's all bullshiat and a scam. In cults, that guy is still alive.

"It seems to me that Islam and Christianity and Judaism all have the same god, and he's telling them all different things." Billy Connolly

On the sixth day God created man. On the seventh day, man returned the favor.

"When we talk to God, we're praying. When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic."

Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakeable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time. Richard Dawkins

Christian, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin. Ambrose Bierce

(and) One who believes the NT is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbour.

Faith, noun. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. Ambrose Bierce

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. Douglas Adams

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. John F. Kennedy

Christianity - the last refuge of the confused.

Church - a place where gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to people who will never go there.

I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability. Oscar Wilde

"If the Bible proves that God exists then comic books prove the existence of Superman."

God is a comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.

"Ashcroft went on to say that our way of life is being threatened by a group of radical religious fanatics who are armed and dangerous. And then he called for prayers in the schools and an end to gun control." — Jay Leno.

Saying prayers is equivalent to believing that the universe is governed by a Being who changes his mind if you ask him to."

After saying your prayers at night, you have to get up the next day and do something to make them come true.

"God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That sir, is not free will. It would be akin to a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment or execution. When God says the same we call him 'loving' and build churches in his honor. "

"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H. Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history." — Robert A. Heinlein

Right. Because out of the thousands of gods we've invented, you're praying to the right one.

Always respect another man's religion, but only to the extent that you respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his kids are smart.

A casual stroll through any lunatic asylum shows that faith doesn't prove anything.

There are two types of people, the righteous and the unrighteous. The classifying is done by the righteous.

As Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the former publisher of the New York Times, once said, “I believe in an open mind but not so open that your brains fall out.”

Atheism

“There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.”(Daniel Dennett)

"Atheism is a non-prophet organization"

"Only problem with being an atheist, is they have no holidays."

"I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further."

If you don't know something, just say, I don't know. That's your gospel right there. The gospel of "I don't know." I combined apathy and atheist, and I came up with apatheist. I don't know what happens when I die, and I don't care.

If atheism is a religion, then: Silence is a language. Dead is a state of mind. Hunger is a gourmet meal. Health is a disease. Bald is a hair colour.

An atheist doesn't have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that there can't be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that the evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf question.

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

The only way to kill an atheist is to have sex with it.

Religion and Politics

"I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another." Thomas Jefferson

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Mankind will never be free until the last politician is hung by the entrails of the last priest." Denis Diderot

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” Seneca (Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD)

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." — George Washington

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." — Thomas Jefferson

What have been the fruits of Christianity? Superstition, bigotry and persecution." — James Madison

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

When it comes to handling delicate matters affecting the survival of the planet, you want to send in the 79-year old German guy with a Marge Simpson hat, a history of talking directly to God, and seven decades of sperm backup. I don't see how that could go wrong." — Scott Adams.

Politicians treat God the way heavy metal bands treat Satan, as some kind of marketing device.

We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. You don't pray in my school, and I won't think in your church.

Religion and Science

Karl Popper was an Australian philosopher who said that science never achieves absolute truth. Instead it gets closer and closer to the truth by disqualifying false ideas.

Science adjusts its beliefs when new observations are made. Faith denies observations in order to preserve its beliefs.

Carl Sagan quote "In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed”? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way."

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of squeezing one's eyes shut and wailing: 'does not!'

Mr. Creationist Candidate, sir, given the overwhelming body of evidence from hundreds of different scientific fields ranging from archeology to physics to zoology, can you explain to us how you can seriously believe that the world was created 2000 years after the Babylonians invented beer ?

The Creationists have this creator who is evil, who is small-minded, who is malevolent, and who is not very bright and can't even get his science right. Creationists have made their creator in their own image, in my view.

The Religious Right aren't, and Scientific Creationism isn't.

What is notable about creation 'scientists' is that they never seem to accomplish anything of note in biology. Hardly any of them have publications in major scientific peer-reviewed journals. None have won any of the major scientific awards. While scientists who use evolution as a research tool are making discoveries not merely in evolution, but in fields as far afield as biochemistry, genetics, pharmacology, and molecular biology, creation 'scientists' don't seem to do anything but creation 'science'. The ultimate test of a theory is how useful it is in providing a basis for discovery. Many scientists don't even care about evolutionary issues per se, any more than they care about number theory. They use evolutionary theory for the same reason that they use mathematics — because their experience has shown them that it is an indispensable tool in their own area of study.

Several thousand years ago, a small tribe of ignorant near-savages wrote various collections of myths, wild tales, lies, and gibberish. Over the centuries, these stories were embroidered, garbled, mutilated, and torn into small pieces that were then repeatedly shuffled. Finally, this material was successively and badly translated into several languages. The resultant text, creationists feel, is the best guide to this complex and technical subject.

If your religion is dependent on evolution being false, then it is a stupid religion and should be made fun of until he shuts up in public about his delusions or gets a religion that isn't so easily proven false.

There is no theory of evolution. Evolution is a fact. The theory is the explanation of how it happened.

Suppose that every memory, written word and piece of technology on earth was destroyed all at once, leaving humanity to start completely from scratch. Everything we have come to know about science would eventually be discovered again. Given a few thousand years, people would figure out chemistry, and rediscover all of the same elements we know about now. People would once again understand biology, including its evolutionary origins. People would eventually see the motions of other galaxies in the sky, and work out the details of the big bang.
This is the glorious part about science, it can and would all be replicated. I can assure you, however, that your story about a talking snake would be gone forever.

That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, 'yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. Amen!' If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it.

Religion has ever been anti-human, anti-woman, anti-life, anti-peace, anti-reason and anti-science. The god idea has been detrimental not only to humankind but to the earth. It is time now for reason, education and science to take over.

So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe." — Isaac Asimov

Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.

God used to be the best explanation we'd got, and we've now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining.

“Still, if history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth. The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology. Acceptance of the supernatural conveyed a great advantage throughout prehistory when the brain was evolving. Thus it is in sharp contrast to biology, which was developed as a product of the modern age and is not underwritten by genetic algorithms. The uncomfortable truth is that the two beliefs are not factually compatible. As a result those who hunger for both intellectual and religious truth will never acquire both in full measure.” ― Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science.

Laughter, the best medicine

Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things... one of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority.(Hitchens)

The only thing that is not in debate is that Jesus Christ's middle initial was "H"

Atheist Voodoo Doll: Stick your victim with a pin directly.

I resolve to redefine morality to suit my short term objectives.

To err is human but it feels divine.

Of course, many still feel the need to act ridiculous and flop around when they're fine, suffering from IBD's (I BE DYIN'!) and TMJ (Too Much Jesus)

Penny: I’m a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know.
Sheldon: Yes, it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun’s apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonalds makes you a hamburger.

Agnostic: a cowardly atheist.

Atheist: someone who doesn't believe in God but is still holier than thou.

... or someone who watches Everton vs Liverpool and doesn't care who wins.



Or just go here