“All religions are ultimately cargo cults.
Adherents perform required rituals, follow
specific rules, and expect to be supernaturally
gifted with desired rewards—long life,
honor, wisdom, children, good health, wealth,
victory over opponents, immortality after
death, any desired rewards.”
Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 19 (p. 357)
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Octavia E. Butler 107
American science fiction writer 1947–2006Related quotes
As quoted in The Complete Phil Ochs : Chords of Fame (1978) by Almo publications
“Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.”
Source: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
“My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.”
Greek Exercises (1888), written two days after his sixteenth birthday.
Youth
Context: I should like to believe my people's religion, which was just what I could wish, but alas, it is impossible. I have really no religion, for my God, being a spirit shown merely by reason to exist, his properties utterly unknown, is no help to my life. I have not the parson's comfortable doctrine that every good action has its reward, and every sin is forgiven. My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.
“Give without expecting any worldly reward here on Earth.”
