Religion Quotes and Sayings

Religion Quotes

The purpose of all major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts. ~Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

There's something in every atheist, itching to believe, and something in every believer, itching to doubt. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life. ~John Updike, Self-Consciousness, 1989

A religion without the element of mystery would not be a religion at all. ~Edwin Lewis

It is doubtless true that religion has been the world's psychiatrist throughout the centuries. ~Karl Menninger

I was reading this really interesting article in the American Psychiatric Journal.... research shows that going to church actually boosts your immune system, decreases your blood pressure, and reduces stress. It's kind of like an antioxidant from God. ~Bones, "The Repo Man in the Septic Tank," original airdate 2014 March 17th, spoken by the character Seeley Booth, writing credits M.Peterson, H.Hanson, and K.Reichs

Religion is the metaphysics of the masses. ~Arthur Schopenhauer

All religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays. ~Cathy Ladman

No religion is a true religion that does not make men tingle to their finger tips with a sense of infinite hazard. ~William Ernest Hocking

The church is the great lost and found department. ~Robert Short

I speak not of men's creeds—they rest between

Man and his Maker.

~Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet. ~Thomas Merton

God made so many different kinds of people. Why would he allow only one way to serve him? ~Martin Buber

All religions must be tolerated... for... every man must get to heaven his own way. ~Frederick the Great

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. ~Dalai Lama

People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Most men's anger about religion is as if two men should quarrel for a lady that neither of them care for. ~George Savile, Marquess de Halifax

Most sermons sound to me like commercials — but I can't make out whether God is the Sponsor or the Product. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstances. ~Theodore Dreiser, 1941

I like the silence of a church, before the service begins better than any preaching. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

All men have need of the gods. ~Homer

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it. ~George Bernard Shaw

Philosophy is the love of wisdom: Christianity is the wisdom of love. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

Follow Descartes! Do not give up the religion of your youth until you get a better one. ~Martin H. Fischer

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. ~Seneca the Younger

No man treats a motor car as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin, he does not say, "You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go." He attempts to find out what is wrong and set it right. ~Bertrand Russell, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?

My religious position: I think that God could do a lot better, and I'm willing to give Him the chance. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Religion often gets credit for curing rascals when old age is the real medicine. ~Austin O'Malley

If there were no God, there would be no Atheists. ~G.K. Chesterton

The whole point of Christianity is that everyone in the world, from Charles Manson to Mother Teresa, deserves to go to hell. ~Sean Ningen

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair. ~G.K. Chesterton

A faith of convenience is a hollow faith. ~M*A*S*H, "A Holy Mess," original airdate 1982 February 1st, written by Larry Gelbart, Elias Davis, Richard Hooker, Ring Lardner Jr, David Pollock, and W.C. Heinz, spoken by the character Father Mulcahy

The churches must learn humility as well as teach it. ~George Bernard Shaw, St. Joan

I considered atheism, but there weren't enough holidays. ~Author Unknown

A religion can no more afford to degrade its Devil than to degrade its God. ~Havelock Ellis

Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat. ~John Morley

In church, sacred music would make believers of us all — but preachers can be counted on to restore the balance. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion — several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven. ~Mark Twain

Traveler: "God has been mighty good to your fields, Mr. Farmer."

Farmer: "You should have seen how he treated them when I wasn't around."

~Author Unknown

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. ~Doug McLeod

I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents become better people as a result of practicing it. ~Joe Mullally

According to science, the universe began as a swirl of gas that, as it cooled, spun off the Ten Commandments. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism. ~William James

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. ~Anne Lamott

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain

Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soul-less conditions. It is the opium of the people. ~Karl Marx, "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," 1884

I believe in God, I just don't trust anyone who works for him. ~Author unknown, from a stand-up comedy routine on television

There are three religious truths: 1) Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. 2) Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith. 3) Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or at Hooters. ~Author Unknown

Not all religion is to be found in the church, any more than all knowledge is found in the classroom. ~Author Unknown

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. ~Author Unknown

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

It is fear that first brought gods into the world. ~Gaius Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon

If triangles had a God, He'd have three sides. ~Old Yiddish Proverb

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. ~Richard Burton

Religion is a fashionable substitute for Belief. ~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

I'm not religious, but I like God and he likes me. ~Tony Kushner, Angels in America

 

   

 

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? ~Douglas Adams

No creed can be stretched to the size of truth; no church can be made as large as man. ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous. ~David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, 1739

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty. ~Thomas Jefferson

I didn't know I had a quarrel with him. ~Henry Thoreau in answer to the question, "Have you made your peace with God?"

In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion more seriously than the practitioners. ~Jonathon Miller

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death. ~George Carlin

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. ~Thomas Jefferson

Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence; they have relegated him to a sanctuary; the walls of the temple restrict his view; he does not exist outside of it. ~Diderot, Pensées philosophiques, 1746

If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is, "Probably because of something you did." ~Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"

When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out. ~Frank Sinatra

My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance — but for us, not for God. ~Albert Einstein

Oh, honey, God don't care which church you go, long as you show up! ~Robert Harling, Steel Magnolias

Some people would have us love, or rather obey God, chiefly because he outbids the devil. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist. ~G.C. Lichtenberg

I refuse to be labeled immoral merely because I am godless. ~Peter Walker

What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak. ~George Santayana, Reason in Religion

Scriptures: the sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based. ~Ambrose Bierce

"I refuse to prove that I exist" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing." "Oh," says man, "but the Babel Fish is a dead give-away, isn't it? It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't. Q.E.D." "Oh, I hadn't thought of that," says God, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. ~Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

There are ten church members by inheritance for every one by conviction. ~Author Unknown

A man without religion is like a horse without a bridle. ~Latin Proverb

There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave. ~Louis Kronenberger

The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles? ~John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1815 June 20th

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens. ~Michel de Montaigne, translated

It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. ~Denis Diderot

How many observe Christ's birthday! How few his precepts!

O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.

~Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1757

Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but live for it. ~C.C. Colton

To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely. ~Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinthes, 1962

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. ~Francis Bacon, Essays: Of Atheism, 1625

There is a story, which is fairly well known, about when the missionaries came to Africa. They had the Bible and we, the natives, had the land. They said "Let us pray," and we dutifully shut our eyes. When we opened them, why, they now had the land and we had the Bible. ~Desmond M. Tutu, "Religious Human Rights and the Bible"

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes. ~James Feibleman, Understanding Philosophy, 1973

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings. Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. ~Pearl S. Buck

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?" ~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge

The faith that stands on authority is not faith. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry. ~Edgar Allen Poe

On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position one hundred percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism. ~Barry Goldwater

People who rely most on God rely least on themselves. ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays

God has been replaced, as he has all over the West, with respectability and air conditioning. ~Imamu Amiri Baraka

Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny. ~George Santayana

To crush out fanaticism and revere the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to falling prostrate beneath the tree of creation and contemplating its vast ramifications full of stars. We have a duty to perform, to cultivate the human soul, to defend mystery against miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and to reject the absurd; to admit nothing that is inexplicable excepting what is necessary, to purify faith and obliterate superstition from the face of religion, to remove the vermin from the garden of God. ~Victor Hugo

It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity. ~Abraham Lincoln, quoted in What Great Men Think Of Religion by Ira Cardiff

Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real mountains.... But it can put mountains where there are none. ~Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, 1879

The Bible is literature, not dogma. ~George Santayana

The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting flabby. Let us be duly thankful for out blessings. ~Garrett Hardin

The act of bellringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people. ~Ezra Pound

      Take no alarm, dear reader, at the sound of the word Religion, for I have not the least idea of conducting you into some dark, subterranean cathedral where the air is oppressive and unnatural, but would lead you right out under heaven's sunny dome, where the joyous gospel of nature and inspiration are breathed into the soul....

      This cosmical religion, broad as the world and reaching out to the infinite, as far transcends the man-made creeds that run counter to nature's laws, as the sky transcends all cathedrals that lift up their puny spires beneath it. I have aimed to lead my dear struggling human brothers and sisters into the vestibule of the Temple of Life where are joys forevermore, and where the radiant soul of things begins to appear.

      ~Edwin D. Babbitt, Religion as Revealed by the Material and Spiritual Universe, 1881

In general, the churches, visited by me often on weekdays... bore for me the same relation to God that billboards did to Coca-Cola; they promoted thirst without quenching it. ~John Updike, A Month of Sundays, 1975

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand. ~Mark Twain

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination. ~Mark Twain

Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion. ~Robert Green Ingersoll

How can the Church be received as a trustworthy guide in the invisible, which falls into so many errors in the visible? ~John W. Draper

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. ~Robert Heinlein, Notebooks of Lazarus Long

The Theologian is an owl, sitting on an old dead branch in the tree of human knowledge, and hooting the same old hoots that have been hooted for hundreds and thousands of years, but he has never given a hoot for progress. ~Emmet F. Fields

When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will be glorified and people who are damned. ~Robert Ingersoll, Some Reasons Why

Religions are like farts. Yours is good, but everyone else's stinks. ~Picket Fences

Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of squeezing one's eyes shut and wailing "Does not!" ~Author Unknown

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. ~H.L. Mencken

If God has created us in His image, we have more than returned the compliment. ~Voltaire

God is innocent. Noah built in a flood plain. ~Author Unknown

To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. ~Ghose Aurobindo

Nowhere is there an account or portrait of Christ laughing... he is always stern, serious and as gloomy as a prison guard. Never does one see him laughing until tears appear in his eyes like the roly-poly squint-eyed Buddha guffawing with arms upraised. ~Author Unknown

The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature. ~Alfred North Whitehead

Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it. ~Søren Kierkegaard, Time, 1946 December 16th

Christian fundamentalism: the doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life. ~Andrew Lias

Organized Christianity has probably done more to retard the ideals that were its founders' than any other agency in the world. ~Richard Le Gallienne

I prefer to think of them as the Ten Suggestions. ~Author Unknown

If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction. ~Judith Hayes, In God We Trust: But Which One?

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. ~Voltaire

It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an actual sin. ~H.L. Mencken

On the other hand, the Bible contains much that is relevant today, like Noah taking forty days to find a place to park. ~Curtis McDougall

An infinite God ought to be able to protect Himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. ~Robert Ingersoll, quoted in Ingersoll the Magnificent

Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

Christianity is not a religion; it's an industry. ~Author Unknown

It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

Such religion is Churchianity; it is not Christianity. Christianity means the religion where Christ is all; Churchianity, the religion where the Church is all. ~John Cumming, "Salvation," sermon preached before the Queen, 1850 September 22nd

Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. ~Chapman Cohen

The Church has its problems, but the older I get, the more comfort I find there. ~Bono

None of us can boast about the morality of our ancestors. The records do not show that Adam and Eve were married. ~Ed Howe

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. ~Stephen J. Gould

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. ~George Bernard Shaw

Church tax exemption means that we all drop our money in the collection boxes, whether we go to church or not and whether we are interested in the church or not. It is systematic and complete robbery, from which none of us escapes. ~E. Haldeman-Julius, The Church Is a Burden, Not a Benefit, In Social Life

Instead of being born again, why not just grow up? ~Author Unknown

A Christian is a man who feels

Repentance on a Sunday

For what he did on Saturday

And is going to do on Monday.

~Thomas Russell Ybarra, The Christian

A great deal of what passes for current Christianity consists in denouncing other people's vices and faults. ~Henry H. Williams

The point is, could God pass an examination in Theology? ~Malcolm Muggeridge

Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish. ~Author Unknown

They were allowed to stay there on one condition, and that is that they didn't eat of the tree of knowledge. That has been the condition of the Christian church from then until now. They haven't eaten as yet, as a rule they do not. ~Clarence Darrow

Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams — they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do — they all contain truths. ~Muhammad Ali

A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain — then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system? ~Robert A. Heinlein

I like to browse in occult bookshops if for no other reason than to refresh my commitment to science. ~Heinz Pagels, The Dreams of Reason

I believe in God, but I'm not too clear on the other details. ~Bill Veeck

People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. ~Dave Barry

If God doesn't like the way I live, let him tell me, not you. ~Author Unknown

No rage is equal to the rage of a contented right-thinking man when he is confronted in the marketplace by an idea which belongs in the pulpit. ~Thurman W. Arnold

Those people who tell me that I'm going to hell while they are going to heaven somehow make me very glad that we're going to separate destinations. ~Martin Terman

The myths about Hades and the gods, though they are pure invention, help to make men virtuous. ~Diodorus Siculus, c. 20 BC

The Bible may be the truth but it's not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. ~Samuel Butler

Religion seems to have a way of making people abandon logic. ~Amanda Baxter, 1998

Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need forgiveness. ~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

God has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. ~Frederick Douglass, escaped slave

[A]ll deities reside in the human breast. ~William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"

Strange...a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied seventy times seven and invented Hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him! ~Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger

The biblical account of Noah's Ark and the Flood is perhaps the most implausible story for fundamentalists to defend. Where, for example, while loading his ark, did Noah find penguins and polar bears in Palestine? ~Judith Hayes

Nature wants us to enjoy life to the full and die without giving it a second thought; Christianity wants the opposite. ~Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Les Cahiers

Most men would kill the truth if truth would kill their religion. ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays

Most people's religion is what they want to believe, not what they do believe. ~Luther Burbank, Why I Am an Infidel

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means. ~George Bernard Shaw

Most of us spend the first six days of each week sowing wild oats, then we go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure. ~Fred Allen

It is the position of some theists that their right to freedom of religion is abridged when they are not allowed to violate the rationalists' right to freedom from religion. ~James T. Green

A dogma will thrive in soil where the truth could not get root. ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays

Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years with time off for good behavior? ~James Donovan

Faith is never identical with piety. ~Karl Barth

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said 'Stop! don't do it!' 'Why shouldn't I?' he said. I said, 'Well, there's so much to live for!' He said, 'Like what?' I said, 'Well...are you religious or atheist?' He said, 'Religious.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?' He said, 'Christian.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?' He said, 'Protestant.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?' He said, 'Baptist!' I said, 'Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist church of god or Baptist church of the lord?' He said, 'Baptist church of god!' I said, 'Me too! Are you original Baptist church of god, or are you reformed Baptist church of god?' He said, 'Reformed Baptist church of god!' I said, 'Me too! Are you reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?' He said, 'Reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!' I said, 'Die, heretic scum,' and pushed him off. ~Emo Phillips

The problem with fundamentalists insisting on a literal interpretation of the Bible is that the meaning of words change. A prime example is 'Spare the rod, spoil the child.' A rod was a stick used by shepherds to guide their sheep to go in the desired direction. Shepherds did not use it to beat their sheep. The proper translation of the saying is 'Give your child guidance, or they will go astray.' It does not mean 'Beat the shit out of your child or he will become rotten' as many fundamentalist parents seem to believe. ~Author Unknown

Most reformers wore rubber boots and stood on glass when God sent a current of Commonsense through the Universe. ~Elbert Hubbard

The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action. ~Albert Einstein

Everyday people are straying away from the church and going back to God. ~Lennie Bruce, The Essential Lennie Bruce, 1972

Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. ~H.L. Mencken

The Virgin Mary was an unwed teenage mother. ~Author Unknown

The Christian Right is neither. ~Author Unknown

[Creation science is] an attempt to give credibility to Hebrew mythology by making people believe that the world's foremost biologists, paleontologists, and geologists are a bunch of incompetent nincompoops. ~Ron Peterson

"There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes. ~James Morrow

Without cultural sanction, most or all our religious beliefs and rituals would fall into the domain of mental disturbance. ~John F. Schumaker, Corruption of Reality, Unified Theory of Religion, Hypnosis and Psychotherapy

We are punished by our sins, not for them. ~Elbert Hubbard

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui. ~Helen Keller

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools. ~Author Unknown

Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals. ~Agnes Repplier, Points of View

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it. ~G.K. Chesterton