In any modern society encouraging your child to cut himself is an unthinkable act, but only with religious belief becomes part of the culture, and demands respect.
Research on child abuse suggests that religious beliefs can foster, encourage, and justify the abuse of children. When contempt for sex underlies teachings, this creates a breeding ground for abuse.
There are clearly many good politicians who are guided by religious belief, so the mix can work. But there's a line to be drawn. It would be hugely dangerous for a country's laws to be set by the scriptures, and particularly those of the expansionist...
There is a species of person called a 'Modern Churchman' who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to any religious belief.
Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action.
All religious belief is a function of nonrational faith. And faith, by its very definition, tends to be impervious to intellectual argument or academic criticism
It is no coincidence that so many religious beliefs date back to times when no science could possibly have accounted satisfactorily for many of the natural phenomena inspiring scripture and myths.
Not without deep pain do we admit to ourselves that the artists of all ages have in their highest flights carried to heavenly transfiguration precisely those conceptions that we now recognize as false: they are the glorifiers of the religious and phi...
Many people profess a belief in the existence of a spiritual realm, often aligning with their religious training or background. (Recent surveys indicate that, on average, between 48 percent and 59 percent of Europeans claim to believe in an afterlife...
Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would remove the crutch that supports the orthod...
One need not believe in Pallas Athena, the virgin goddess, to be overwhelmed by the Parthenon. Similarly, a man who rejects all dogmas, all theologies and all religious formulations of beliefs may still find Genesis the sublime book par excellence. E...
Debt . . . . that peculiar nexus where money, narrative or story, and religious belief intersect, often with explosive force.
Nonetheless, it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability.
Exploitation was rampant before statehood, and various factions actively tried to eradicate the roots of Hawaiian culture in the process of converting the natives to European religious beliefs. Some of the results can never be undone. We try to honor...
My childhood beliefs became so much a part of me that even today I find myself automatically living by a personal standard of conduct which can only be explained as resulting from my religious training.
In times when religious or political faith or hope predominates, the writer functions totally in unison with society, and expresses society's feelings, beliefs, and hopes in perfect harmony.
As both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowledge, and I have eventually come to a formulation of the kind of religious belief that would, in my view, be compatible with science.
It reminded us that propaganda in some form or other lurks in every book, that every work of art has a meaning and a purpose — a political, social and religious purpose — that our aesthetic judgements are always coloured by our prejudices and bel...
Not taking the Bible (or other texts based on 'revealed truths') literally leaves it up to the reader to cherry-pick elements for belief. There exists no guide for such cherry-picking, and zero religious sanction for it.
Your religious beliefs are your business. They are not and should not be the basis for law. If you use them as justification to discriminate against others, don’t be upset when others decide you’re an asshole." [ ]
Anyone with sincere religious beliefs cannot say that all religions are true. That is so illogical it is pathetic. All religion cannot be true because some of them are so diametrically opposed to each other.
