Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who think differently from him. – Walter Savage Landor
The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him. – Thomas Hardy
Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion. – Stephen Hawking
Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities. – Thomas Paine
I don’t subscribe to organised religion. I’ve travelled enough to see that adherents of organised religion often attack adherents of other religions. – William T. Vollmann
As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions. – Stephen Harper
Religion, for better or for worse, has been politicized in blatant ways that have seldom been equaled in American elections. – Tony Campolo
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth. – Voltaire
America’s state religion, is patriotism, a phenomenon which has convinced many of the citizenry that ‘treason’ is morally worse than murder or rape. – William Blum
The doctor didn’t want me to play golf anymore and was worried about me fly-fishing. Golf is something I enjoy, but fly-fishing is a different thing: That’s religion. Hunting is religion for me. I didn’t want to give those up. – Tom Brokaw
There is no doubt that religion had already waned under the onslaught of the Enlightenment, but it was Freud who provided the radically new understanding of human nature that made any religious explanation of the whats and whys of our personhood seem naive. – Tony Campolo
O blessed Saviour, give me grace like Thee, to make Religion my first, and chiefest care, and devoutly to observe, all solemn times, and all holy Rites, which relate to Thy worship. – Thomas Ken
In Mesopotamia or Egypt, for example, the monarch had a god-like religious status. But this is not the case in Judaism. So that notion that religion can go on, when all the markers of power and trappings of monarchy disappear, ultimately serves the endurance of Judaism very well. – Simon Schama
My understanding of religion and science is that they’re both arrogant schools of thought, and whether they acknowledge it or not they continually broadcast the idea that they have the world figured out. And what they don’t know, they have a theory for which is probably correct. It feels like that shrinks the world, rather than expands it. – Scott Derrickson
In examining the evidence of the Christian religion, it is essential to the discovery of truth that we bring to the investigation a mind freed, as far as possible, from existing prejudice, and open to conviction. – Simon Greenleaf
I had a multicultural exposure; that’s why I don’t believe in a particular religion. I have respect for most because I grew up surrounded by so many. I don’t judge people by that, and I feel extremely offended when people categorise based on race, religion, or gender. – Twinkle Khanna
Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true. – Thomas Paine
The world of religion isn’t a logical world; that’s why children like it. It’s a world of worked-out fantasies, very similar to children’s stories or fairy tales. – Yehuda Amichai
Mysticism, poor mysticism! When it is underestimated and oversimplified, it comes down from its original sphere and stands beside religion. – Sri Chinmoy
I think students should know something about religion as a historical phenomenon, in the same way that they should know something about socialism and humanism and the other great ideas that have shaped political philosophies and therefore the course of human events. – Steven Pinker
Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into a relation to his fellow-men; and his religion… was simply one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for him by his position as a member of society. – William Robertson Smith
In Western lands there is a distinct division between the religious and the secular life. There is one rule of conduct for laymen and another for clergymen. This distinction has never found its place in the life of the people of India. There, all of life is included in the word ‘religion.’ – Virchand Gandhi
Buddhism has become a socially recognized religious philosophy for Americans, whereas it used to be considered an exotic religion. – Thurston Moore