Quotes about religion
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““Evil” is first and foremost a religious notion. It means whatever a religion dislikes.”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 9, “Evil” (p. 33)

Evil

“People not only live by symbols, but die by them, as wars of religion and nationalism attest.”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 4, “Symbols” (p. 19)

War, People

“Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. I may grow rich by art I am compelled to follow, I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment, but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve & abhor.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Notes on Religion (October 1776), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-02_Bk.pdf, p. 266 <br class="br">1770s

Health, Art

“Behavior is imitated, then abstracted into play, formalized into drama and story, crystallized into myth and codified into religion—and only then criticized in philosophy, and provided, post-hoc, with rational underpinnings.”

Jordan Peterson book Maps of Meaning

Source: Books, Maps of Meaning (1999), p. 78

Behavior

“The study of religion opens the human capacity for beauty, meaning, and an awareness of something more than ourselves.”

Susan Ashbrook Harvey (1953) Late antique and Byzantine Christian scholar

[Harvey, Susan Ashbrook, 4, Sohn, Justin, Brown-RISD Cornerstone, An Interview With Professor Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Fall 2015, 4, 1, 16, https://viewer.joomag.com/mag/0401098001450315834?feature=archive, 2022-04-30, en-US, https://web.archive.org/web/20220430014121/https://viewer.joomag.com/mag/0401098001450315834?feature=archive, 2022-04-30, live]

Beauty, Study

“The beauty of our religion is that the reward is dependent on the sincerity of trying and not the attainment of the result.”

Yasir Qadhi (1975) Pakistani-American preacher and imam

Beauty, Dependency, Sincerity

“Deeds rather than words express my concept of the part religion should play in everyday life. I have watched constantly that in our movie work the highest moral and spiritual standards are upheld, whether it deals with fable or with stories of living action.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

1963, Deeds Rather Than Words (1963)

Life, Parting

“Human religion is always like this: it begins by serving God and it ends by killing people.”

Witness Lee (1905–1997) Chinese Christian preacher

Life-Study of Genesis, of Witness Lee - By Living Stream Ministry, ISBN 0-7363-0836-9

God, People

“Religion is much used by the usurper to keep God’s chosen people under his oppression.”

Witness Lee (1905–1997) Chinese Christian preacher

Life-Study of Luke, Chapter 31, Section 2, of Witness Lee - By Living Stream Ministry, ISBN 0-7363-1202-1

God, People

“All religions lead to hypocrisy. Nowhere is hypocrisy more prevailing than in religion. Religion is a field, a realm, for hypocrisy to prevail.”

Witness Lee (1905–1997) Chinese Christian preacher

Life-Study of Luke, Chapter 29, Section 2, of Witness Lee - By Living Stream Ministry, ISBN 0-7363-1202-1

“We may say that religion, as distinguished from modern paganism, implies a life in conformity with nature. It may be observed that the natural life and the supernatural life have a conformity to each other which neither has with the mechanistic life.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Source: The Idea of a Christian Society (1939), Ch. IV, p. 61

Life, Nature

“Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

John Adams letter to John Taylor, Of Caroline, Quincy, (12 March, 1819)
1810s, Letter to John Taylor (1819)

Wealth

“The strength of America is our diversity of people, ethnicities, cultures, languages, religions — this is the secret sauce of our dynamism and resilience.”

Gary Locke (1950) American politician

"Gary Locke keynotes anti-hate summit" in Northwest Asian Weekly https://nwasianweekly.com/2021/10/gary-locke-keynotes-anti-hate-summit/ (29 October 2021)

People, Secret