Best quotes for or against religion?

Question

My favorites:

"The time has come for people of reason to say: enough is enough. Religious faith discourages independent thought, it's divisive, and it's dangerous. ”
“ For many people, part of growing up is killing off the virus of faith with a good strong dose of rational thinking. But if an individual doesn't succeed in shaking it off, his mind is stuck in a permanent state of infancy, and there is a real danger that he will infect the next generation."
"The god of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist, an ethnic-cleanser urging his people on to acts of genocide. ”
“ Fundamentalist Christianity is on the rise among the electorate of the world's only superpower, right up to and including the President. If you believe the surveys, 45 percent of Americans, that's about 135 million people, believe the universe is less than ten thousand years old."

-Richard Dawkins

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. ”
“ We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die, because they are never going to be born. The number of people who could be here in my place outnumbers the sand grains of Sahara. If you think about all the different ways our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here: the number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist. We are privileged to be alive and we should make the most of our time on this world."

More quotes from Richard Dawkins

"If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them? Who is God trying to impress?"

Answer 1

"There are all sorts of things that would be comforting. I expect an injection of morphine would be comforting... But to say that something is comforting is not to say that it's true."
- Richard Dawkins

"I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world."
- Richard Dawkins

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
- Richard Dawkins

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.."
- Thomas Jefferson

"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."
- Bertrand Russell

"Who needs Satan when you have a God like this?""
- Robert M. Price

"What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.""
- Christopher Hitchens

"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.""
- David Brooks

"The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.""
- Peter Ustinov

Sorry, I couldn't just pick one....

Answer 2

These qoutes are not for or against religion.. But for humanity and morality in general....

1) If you are aware of your Humilty; Than you are arrogant

~*~ Ibn Ata-Illa

2) Knowledge is of two kinds; That which is absorbed and that which is heard. And that

which is heard does not profit unless it is absorbed

~*~Ali Ibn Abi Talib

3) The eye of the heart, though closed in fallen men, is able to make in the glimmering of light and this is faith. But anyway of living causes a covering like rust to accumulate over the heart so that it cant sense the divine origin of Gods message.

-~*~Martin Lings

4) Reflect on the work of art; and you may attain the artist

~*~Sheikh Abdul Kadir Jilani

5) The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart

-~*~Jalaludin al-Rumi

6) The chains of habit are too weak to be noticed; until they are too hard to be changed

~*~ME

7) The candle is not there to illuminate itself

~*~ Nawab Jahn fiShan Khan

8) True devotion is to lose awareness of the faculty of devotion

~*~ As Sousi

9) Put aside your pride, throw away your arrogance, and remember your grave

~*~Ali Ibn Abu Talib

10) If is a gem falls into dirt it is still valuable; If dust ascends to heaven it remains value-less

~*~Saadi Al-Shiraz

Answer 3

Here's a collection of some of my fav quotes.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."- Thomas Jefferson
"To condemn a class is, to say the least, to wrong the good with the bad. I do not like to hear a class or nationality condemned on account of a few sinners."- President Abraham Lincoln, in a subsequent meeting with Jewish leaders, after commanding Army General Henry Halleck to revoke Major General Ulysses S. Grant's orders to expulse Jews from Grant's war zone for alleged smuggling and cotton speculation, 1862.
"Faith is believing in things even when commonsense tells you not to."- "Miracle on 34th Street"
"Faith- acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove."- "The Da Vinci Code"
"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box." Unknown

Answer 4

"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."

- Abraham Lincoln, American president (1809-1865).

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

-Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist

"Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night"

-Isaac Asimov, Russian-born - American author

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies."

-Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor

"I believe that all important matters have to be settled here, not in the clouds somewhere after we kick off."

-Billy Joel, American musician

"There is so much in the bible against which every insinct of my being rebels, so much so that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to read it through from beginning to end. I do not think that the knowledge I have gained of its history and sources compensates me for the unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention."

-Helen Keller, American lecturer

Answer 5

"Man is kind enough when he is not excited by religion."

"Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes, and wishes he was certain."

Mark Twain

Answer 6

Lenny Bruce: "I think it's about time we gave up religion and got back to God."

Albert Einstein: "...science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself (or herself) in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds."

Richard Nilsen: Arizona Republic columnist: "We have reached an uncomfortable impasse. We need belief to make life meaningful, yet we cannot allow ourselves to believe in anything. Every faith, institution, political faction and ideal has proved at some level to be a tissue of hypocrisy. We decry our own cynicism, but recognize that, at some level, it is merely realism. Some [people] retreat into conventional orthodoxies; others free-float, aimless in an increasingly valueless society. But there is another alternative: starting from scratch to see if we may discover for ourselves something like universal truth and build the whole thing over again."

Answer 7

That poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter," that's an indictment of organized religion. The Walrus, with his girth and his good nature, he obviously represents either Buddha, or with his tusks, the Hindu elephant god Lord Ganesha. Now, that takes care of your Eastern religions. Now, the Carpenter, which is obviously a reference to Jesus Christ, who was raised a carpenter's son. He represents the Western religions. Now, in the poem, what do they do? What do they do? They dupe all these oysters into following them, and then proceed to shuck and devour the helpless creatures en masse. Now, I don't know what that says to you, but to me it says that following these faiths, based on mythological figures insures the destruction of ones inner-being. Organized religion destroys who we are by inhibiting our actions, by inhibiting our decisions, out of fear of some intangible parent figure that shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago and says, "Do it . . . do it and I'll fu**in' spank you!"
-Loki in the movie Dogma

Answer 8

I am always amused by Christians who try so very hard to defend their position with reason and logic. They are like standing on top of a ladder with their tools and gadgets, straining their necks looking skywards for the leaks, trying to fix the roof amidst the rain. What they do not realize, of course, is that the roof isn't leaking -- it isn't there.
-anonymous

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
-Thomas Jefferson

Answer 9

Here's my favorite quote against religion (though the original intent was quite the opposite):

"Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding." -Martin Luther

Answer 10

Amen to that. I know this one about a priest, a rabbi and a mullah, but it's probably not the time or place.

Thomas Jefferson:
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."