“Religion is heavily laden with the kind of confirmation bias that makes people see their own faiths as true and all others as false. In other words, religion is replete with features to help people fool themselves.”

— Jerry Coyne , book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 29

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Jerry Coyne 154

American biologist 1949

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“You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. … There are so many people who speak badly about religions or other religions, who make fun of them, who make a game out of the religions of others. They are provocateurs.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Statements on his official plane traveling from Sri Lanka to the Philippines, reported in "Pope Francis: 'You cannot make fun of the faith of others (15 January 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSV-GD9gA-U
2010s, 2015
Context: Not only does each person have the freedom and the right to say what they think for the common good, they have a duty to do so. Because while it is true that is wrong to react with violence, If my good friend Mr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch in the nose. … It's normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. … There are so many people who speak badly about religions or other religions, who make fun of them, who make a game out of the religions of others. They are provocateurs. And what happens to them is what would happen to Mr Gasparri if he says a curse word against my mother. There is a limit. … One cannot make war… kill in the name of one’s own religion, that is, in the name of God.

“When two-three different religions claim that only their own religions are true and all other religions are false, their religions are only ways to Heaven, conflicts can not be avoided. Thus, fundamentalism tries to abolish all other religions. This is called Bolshevism in religion. Only the path shown by the Hinduism can relieve the world form this meanness.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

R. Tagore, `Aatmaparichapa' in his book `Parichaya' http://hindusamhati.blogspot.com/2013/05/thoughts-of-rabindranath-tagore-on.html

“For good people to do evil doesn’t require only religion, or even any religion, but simply one of its key elements: belief without evidence—in other words, faith. And that kind of faith is seen not just in religion, but in any authoritarian ideology that puts dogma above truth and frowns on dissent.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 220

“There are no true and false religions, but rather all religions are true in their own way and degree. Each is one of the thousand paths to the One Eternal.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Indian Spirituality and Life (1919)
Context: To the Indian mind the least important part of religion is its dogma; the religious spirit matters, not the theological credo. On the contrary to the Western mind a fixed intellectual belief is the most important part of a cult; it is its core of meaning, it is the thing that distinguishes it from others. For it is its formulated beliefs that make it either a true or a false religion, according as it agrees or does not agree with the credo of its critic. This notion, however foolish and shallow, is a necessary consequence of the Western idea which falsely supposes that intellectual truth is the highest verity and, even, that there is no other. The Indian religious thinker knows that all the highest eternal verities are truths of the spirit. The supreme truths are neither the rigid conclusions of logical reasoning nor the affirmations of credal statement, but fruits of the soul's inner experience. Intellectual truth is only one of the doors to the outer precincts of the temple. And since intellectual truth turned towards the Infinite must be in its very nature many-sided and not narrowly one, the most varying intellectual beliefs can be equally true because they mirror different facets of the Infinite. However separated by intellectual distance, they still form so many side-entrances which admit the mind to some faint ray from a supreme Light. There are no true and false religions, but rather all religions are true in their own way and degree. Each is one of the thousand paths to the One Eternal.

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

As quoted in What Great Men Think About Religion (1945) by Ira D. Cardiff, p. 342. No original source for this has been found in the works of Seneca, or published translations. It is likely that the quote originates with Edward Gibbon who wrote:<blockquote>The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. — Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/890, Ch. II</blockquote> Elbert Hubbard would claim in 1904 ( Little Journeys: To the homes of great philosophers: Seneca http://www.online-literature.com/elbert-hubbard/journeys-vol-eight/2/) that Gibbon was "making a free translation from Seneca".
Disputed

“If the United States and other religious fundamentalist countries of any religion see themselves as God's people, all I can say is bring on the Antichrist and End of Days.”

Patricia MacCormack Australian Scholar

Occulture: Secular Spirituality, pp. 111-112
The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene (2020)

“Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Religion should be something you keep within the confines of your own head, and we should all recognize how pointless it is to try and make other people see the fairies that live in your brain.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/7473-Extra-Punctuation-Videogames-as-Art.2
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“There are two religions in earth, which have distinct enmity against all other religions. These two are Christianity and Islam. They are not just satisfied with observing their own religions, but are determined to destroy all other religions. That’s why the only way to make peace with them is to embrace their religions.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Original works of Rabindranath Vol. 24 page 375, Vishwa Bharti; 1982.

“If people but knew their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

Source: The Bowl of Saki: Thoughts for Daily Contemplation from the Sayings and Teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan

“Religion is heavily laden with the kind of confirmation bias that makes people see their own faiths as true and all others as false. In other words, religion is replete with features to help people fool themselves.”

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Jerry Coyne 154

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