“I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasn’t any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that’s all.”
Source: The Amber Spyglass
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Philip Pullman 161
English author 1946Related quotes

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 34
Context: He is the Ground, He is the Substance, He is the Teaching, He is the Teacher, He is the End, He is the Meed for which every kind soul travaileth.
And this is known, and shall be known to every soul to which the Holy Ghost declareth it. And I hope truly that all those that seek this, He shall speed: for they seek God.
All this that I have now told, and more that I shall tell after, is comforting against sin. For in the Third Shewing when I saw that God doeth all that is done, I saw no sin: and then I saw that all is well. But when God shewed me for sin, then said He: All SHALL be well.

Addresses
Source: Historic Address in Southern California https://www.alislam.org/press-release/head-of-ahmadiyya-muslim-jamaat-delivers-historic-address-in-southern-california/, 11th May 2013

As quoted in Against the Faith (1985) by Jim Herrick, p. 75
Variant translation: It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.

Google search of the second sentence, in quotes, yields a trio of 2019 books alone, most (there and in following) attributing it to Kepler—e.g., see Prof Basden's 2019 work, [Foundations and Practice of Research: Adventures with Dooyeweerd's Philosophy, The Complex Activity of Research [§10—4.1 Less-Obvious Pistic Functioning in Research], Advances in Research Methods, Abingdon-on-Thames, UK, Taylor & Francis-Routledge, 1st, 9781138720688, https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Practice-Research-Adventures-Dooyeweerds/dp/1138720682, February 25, 2020] (page 222).
While most citations of Kepler have been traced back to a translation of an original work, this quotation appears broadly without any such sourcing (e.g., Basden). Where it is sourced, the sources are either spurious (e.g., to the "New World Encyclopedia", a Paragon House/Unification Church product https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/02/arts/unification-church-is-starting-a-publishing-house.html, wherein it is likewise unsourced), or to such sources as Henry Morris' 1988 creationist work, [Men of Science, Men of God: Great Scientists Who Believed the Bible, Green Forest, AR, Master Books, 21st reprint, 9780890510803, https://www.amazon.com/Men-Science-God-Henry-Morris/dp/0890510806, February 25, 2020] (page 21f).
Until a scholarly source is found that ties these statements to an original text from Kepler, they formally must be considered unattributed to Kepler.
Disputed quotes

Letter to William Short (4 August 1820) http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/jefferson_jesus.html on his reason for composing a Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus and referring to Jesus’ biographers, the Gospel writers. Published in Thomas Jefferson: Writings, Merrill D. Peterson, ed., New York: Library of America, 1994, pp. 1435–1440
1820s
Context: My aim in that was, to justify the character of Jesus against the fictions of his pseudo-followers, which have exposed him to the inference of being an impostor. For if we could believe that he really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods and the charlatanisms which his biographers father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind, that he was an impostor. I give no credit to their falsifications of his actions and doctrines, and to rescue his character, the postulate in my letter asked only what is granted in reading every other historian. … I say, that this free exercise of reason is all I ask for the vindication of the character of Jesus. We find in the writings of his biographers matter of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications. Intermixed with these, again, are sublime ideas of the Supreme Being, aphorisms and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence, sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors, with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed. These could not be inventions of the groveling authors who relate them. They are far beyond the powers of their feeble minds. They shew that there was a character, the subject of their history, whose splendid conceptions were above all suspicion of being interpolations from their hands. Can we be at a loss in separating such materials, and ascribing each to its genuine author? The difference is obvious to the eye and to the understanding, and we may read as we run to each his part; and I will venture to affirm, that he who, as I have done, will undertake to winnow this grain from its chaff, will find it not to require a moment's consideration. The parts fall asunder of themselves, as would those of an image of metal and clay. … There are, I acknowledge, passages not free from objection, which we may, with probability, ascribe to Jesus himself; but claiming indulgence from the circumstances under which he acted. His object was the reformation of some articles in the religion of the Jews, as taught by Moses. That sect had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust. Jesus, taking for his type the best qualities of the human head and heart, wisdom, justice, goodness, and adding to them power, ascribed all of these, but in infinite perfection, to the Supreme Being, and formed him really worthy of their adoration. Moses had either not believed in a future state of existence, or had not thought it essential to be explicitly taught to his people. Jesus inculcated that doctrine with emphasis and precision. Moses had bound the Jews to many idle ceremonies, mummeries and observances, of no effect towards producing the social utilities which constitute the essence of virtue; Jesus exposed their futility and insignificance. The one instilled into his people the most anti-social spirit towards other nations; the other preached philanthropy and universal charity and benevolence. The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation, is ever dangerous. Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the priests of the superstition, a blood thirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the web of the law. He was justifiable, therefore, in avoiding these by evasions, by sophisms, by misconstructions and misapplications of scraps of the prophets, and in defending himself with these their own weapons, as sufficient, ad homines, at least. That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore. But that he might conscientiously believe himself inspired from above, is very possible.

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)
Context: Far be it from us not to recognize the importance of the second factor, moral teaching — especially that which is unconsciously transmitted in society and results from the whole of the ideas and comments emitted by each of us on facts and events of every-day life. But this force can only act on society under one condition, that of not being crossed by a mass of contradictory immoral teachings resulting from the practice of institutions.
In that case its influence is nil or baneful. Take Christian morality: what other teaching could have had more hold on minds than that spoken in the name of a crucified God, and could have acted with all its mystical force, all its poetry of martyrdom, its grandeur in forgiving executioners? And yet the institution was more powerful than the religion: soon Christianity — a revolt against imperial Rome — was conquered by that same Rome; it accepted its maxims, customs, and language. The Christian church accepted the Roman law as its own, and as such — allied to the State — it became in history the most furious enemy of all semi-communist institutions, to which Christianity appealed at Its origin.
http://www.kipmckean.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/Revolution_through_Restoration_1_2_3.pdf, Ending to Revoultion Through Restoration 1, 1992.
Revolution Through Restoration (1992-2002)

Source: Viduthalai – 25-12-1958)(also https://myvoice.opindia.com/2021/09/why-ev-ramasamy-doesnt-deserve-to-be-celebrated/