“Primitive religions consisted mainly in the worship of the powers of nature.”

—  Walter Rauschenbusch

...the essential thing in religion was not morality, but the ceremonial method of placating the god, securing his gifts, and ascertaining his wishes. He might even be pleased best by immoral actions, by the immolation of human victims, by the sacrifice of woman's chastity, or by the burning of the first born.
Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.1 The Historical Roots of Christianity the Hebrew Prophets, p. 4

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Primitive religions consisted mainly in the worship of the powers of nature." by Walter Rauschenbusch?
Walter Rauschenbusch photo
Walter Rauschenbusch 83
United States Baptist theologian 1861–1918

Related quotes

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 1 : A tough mind and a tender heart
Context: Softmindedness often invades religion. … Softminded persons have revised the Beautitudes to read "Blessed are the pure in ignorance: for they shall see God." This has led to a widespread belief that there is a conflict between science and religion. But this is not true. There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists, but not between science and religion. … Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak photo

“It has been shown that Vedic religion and worship are both interglacial; and though that we can not trace their ultimate origin yet the Arctic character of the Vedic deities fully proves that the powers of nature represented by them has been already clothed with divine attributives by the primitive Aryans in their original home round about the North Pole, or the Meru of the Puranas.”

Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920) Indian independence activist

“The Arctic Home in the Vedas” on dating of the Vedas to 3000 to 1400 BC [Ganga Prasad, The Fountainhead of Religion: A Comparative Study of the Principle Religions of the World and a Manifestation of Their Common Origin from the Vedas, http://books.google.com/books?id=0QO_zed25R4C&pg=PA222, 1 January 2000, Book Tree, 978-1-58509-054-9, 222–]

Mark Twain photo

“Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts or happenings. It consist mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one's head.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Annie Besant photo

“Sun-worship and pure forms of nature worship were, in their day, noble religions, highly allegorical but full of profound truth and knowledge.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Esoteric Christianity, Or The Lesser Mysteries http://books.google.co.in/books?id=6Uk0AHHn-cgC&pg=PT8, p. 8

Mark Twain photo

“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Notebook
Source: Mark Twain's Notebook (1935), p. 346

Bill Maher photo

“Idiots must stop claiming that atheism is a religion. Religion is defined as the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power. And atheism is… precisely not that. Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian
Alfred North Whitehead photo

“The power of God is the worship He inspires…. The worship of God is not a rule of safety — it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Source: 1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925), Ch. 12: Religion and Science.

Plato photo

“Magic consists of, and is acquired by the worship of the gods.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

Quoted by H.P. Blavatsky, in The Theosophical Glossary, http://theosophy.org/Blavatsky/Theosophical%20Glossary/Thegloss.htm (1892)
Other

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Softmindedness often invades religion. ... Softminded persons have revised the Beautitudes to read "Blessed are the pure in ignorance: for they shall see God." This has led to a widespread belief that there is a conflict between science and religion. But this is not true. There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists, but not between science and religion. ... Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. book Strength to Love

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 1 : A tough mind and a tender heart

Yevgeny Zamyatin photo

“Realism that is not primitive, not realia but realiora, consists in displacement, distortion, curvature, non-objectivity.”

Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884–1937) Russian author

Zamyatin here references a statement in Latin created by the poet Vyacheslav Ivanov: a realibus ad realiora ["from the real to the more real" or “from reality toward a higher reality"]
On Literature, Revolution, Entropy and Other Matters (1923)
Context: Science and art both project the world along certain coordinates. Differences in form are due only to differences in the coordinates. All realistic forms are projections along the fixed, plane coordinates of Euclid's world. These coordinates do not exist in nature. Nor does the finite, fixed world; this world is a convention, an abstraction, an unreality. And therefore Realism — be it "socialist" or "bourgeois" — is unreal. Far closer to reality is projection along speeding, curved surfaces — as in the new mathematics and the new art. Realism that is not primitive, not realia but realiora, consists in displacement, distortion, curvature, non-objectivity. Only the camera lens is objective.

Related topics