Why do we tend to consider ourselves happier than homeless street dwellers? If there is no money, no gold, no private property, no marriage, no religion, no government, there is absolutely nothing to trouble about.
Most of the dogmatic religions have exhibited a perverse talent for taking the wrong side on the most important concepts in the material universe, from the structure of the solar system to the origin of man.
If a sect does officially insist that its structure of belief demands that evolution be false, then no compromise is possible. An honest and competent biology teacher can only conclude that the sect's beliefs are wrong and that its religion is a fals...
However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights.
I am, indeed, an absolute materialist so far as actual belief goes; with not a shred of credence in any form of supernaturalism—religion, spiritualism, transcendentalism, metempsychosis, or immortality.
religion, the most powerful of the elements which have entered into the formation of moral feeling, having almost always been governed either by the ambition of a hierarchy, seeking control over every department of human conduct, or by the spirit of ...
You can have Jesus in your spirit and have an outrageous mess in your soul, and if you don't know what that's called, it's called religion.
I endeavored to renounce society, that I might avoid temptation. But it was a poor religion; so far as it prevailed, only tended to make me gloomy, stupid, unsociable, and useless.
Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.
While art should never become exclusionary and elitist, any culture which fails to support its artists is only contributing to its own impoverishment. (Beyond Religion, p. 122)
In my more rebellious days I tried to doubt the existence of the sacred, but the universe kept dancing and life kept writing poetry across my life. (Beyond Religion, p. 81)
Human desire is the criterion of all truth and all good. Truth does not lie beyond humanity, but is one of the products of the human mind and feeling. There is really nothing to fear. The motive of fear in religion is base...
Explaining the unknown should be left to science, questions of good and bad behavior can be answered by ethics, and inspiration is often found in the arts. There’s no longer a need for the social construct of religion.
Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks Our ready minds to fellowship divine, A fellowship with essence; till we shine, Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. Behold The clear religion of heaven!
I had been taught that the separation between religion and politics happened in the Enlightenment. But there were people who tried to create a secular relationship to government 2,000 years ago, and those people were the Jews.
They're after one world religion and one world government. That's why they've attacked the Catholic Church so strongly, to ultimately take control over it by their doctrine.
Eisenheim: I thought we might end this evening with a discussion of the soul. All of the greatest religions speak of the soul's endurance before the end of life. So what then does it mean to die?
Jack Crabb: After my religion period, I took up with a swindler: Allardyce Merriweather. After Mrs. Pendrake his honesty was downright refreshing.
Jane Hawking: What about you? What are you?... Stephen Hawking: Cosmologist, I'm a Cosmologist. Jane Hawking: What is that? Stephen Hawking: It is a kind of religion for intelligent atheists.
Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.
Bike lanes - I put that now in the category of things you shouldn't discuss at dinner parties, right? It used to be money and politics and religion. Now, in New York, you should add bike lanes.
