One of your American professors said that to study religion was merely to know the mind of man, but if one truly wanted to know the mind of God, you must study physics.
These days too many of us seem inclined to cover our ears, close our eyes, and blindly follow the most narrow, conservative tenets of religion; or else seek comfort in the ancient traditions of New Age ritual.
People in love don't see gender, colour or religion. Or age. It's about the other person, the one that you love and who loves you. You don't think of them in terms of a label. You just go with your heart.
Secularism is categorically not saying that the religious may not speak out publicly or have a say in public life. It is about saying that religion alone should not confer a privileged say in public life, or greater influence on it. It really is as s...
The attitude is we live and let live. This is actually an amazing change in values in a rather short time and it's an example of freedom from religion.
Religion and politics hit nerves. There's a lot of anger about a lot of things. It's not easily resolved. I guess that's what wars are about. Wars are about prejudice and fear. Hit first before you get hit. Believe me, I know.
Consciousness permits us to develop the instruments of culture - morality and justice, religion, art, economics and politics, science and technology. Those instruments allow us some measure of freedom in the confrontation with nature.
The passion for art is, as for believers, very religious. It unites people, its message is of common humanity. Art has become my religion - others pray in church. It's a banality, but you don't possess art, it possesses you. It's like falling in love...
Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by m...
I select a very small number of things to be sceptical about, such as markets, and on these I am hypersceptic. But I want to be fooled by randomness in art. I want the ceremonial of religion; we are made for it.
But in order to have an adult faith, most of us have to outgrow and unlearn much of what we were taught about religion.
Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his own resources, would be able to bring up a child.
How do you live with evil? Art is traditionally - certainly with my secular background - the answer, but art is very self-referential, whereas religion claims to go beyond the bounds of human existence.
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.
Religion is like an art gallery. One painting will speak to you more than another, and there's no need to explain or defend your taste.
In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer.
I have always envied people who believe strongly in religion, people who could face a tragedy by praying and know that it would be all right.
Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Sacredness binds people together, and then blinds them to the arbitrariness of the practice.
Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason.
Groups create supernatural beings not to explain the universe but to order their societies.
