“People are slaves to the world, and as long as they live favorable and comfortable lives, they are loyal to religious principles. However, at hard times, the times of trials, true religious people are scarce.”

80:8
Sermons

On Pilgrimage (1948), p. 127

As quoted in "The Dreams of William Golding", BBC Arena (2012)

Interview in Playboy (November 1999)
Context: Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live.

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 173

Source: The Ethics of Ambiguity

Part XV - General corollary
The Natural History of Religion (1757)
Context: Hear the verbal protestations of all men: Nothing so certain as their religious tenets. Examine their lives: You will scarcely think that they repose the smallest confidence in them. The greatest and truest zeal gives us no security against hypocrisy: The most open impiety is attended with a secret dread and compunction. No theological absurdities so glaring that they have not, sometimes, been embraced by men of the greatest and most cultivated understanding. No religious precepts so rigorous that they have not been adopted by the most voluptuous and most abandoned of men.

Cultivating Strength & Vitality (2009)

08 Nov 90
Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons