religion

"If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."

"The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate."

"The more profoundly we study this wonderful book [the Bible], and the more closely we observe its divine precept, the better citizens we will become and the higher will be our destiny as a nation."

"I have no argument with those who see in organized religion a template or an imperative to live life according to a prescribed set of beliefs. Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like."

"We are the Bibles the world is reading; We are the creeds the world is needing; We are the sermons the world is heeding."

"the first quality of an honest man is contempt for religion, which would have us afraid of the most natural thing in the world, which is death; and would have us hate the one beautiful thing destiny has given us, which is life."

"You don't get to advertise all the good that your religion does without first scrupulously subtracting all the harm it does and considering seriously the question of whether some other religion, or no religion at all, does better."

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

"Faith is not Desire. Faith is Will. Desires are things that need to be satisfied, whereas Will is a force. Will changes the space around us,..."

"The life of West, Nietzsche said, is based on Christianity. The values of the West are based on Christianity. Some of these values seem to have taken a life of their own, and this gives us the illusion that we can get rid of Christianity and keep the values. This, Nietzsche says, is an illusion...Remove the Christian foundation, and the values must go too."

"If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it."

"Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name."

"Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion."

"We make time for what we truly value. We build habits and routines around the things that really matter to us. This is an important principle to understand as we seek to build our lives around the gospel. Do you want a cross centered life? A cross centered life is made up of cross centered days."

"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism."

"If a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission."

"Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it."

"The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?"

"Jehovah's Witness are welcomed into my home...You gotta respect anybody who gets all dressed up in Sunday clothes and goes door-to-door on days so hot their high heels sink a half-inch into the pavement.The trick is to do all the talking yourself. Pretty soon, they'll look at their watches and say, 'Speaking of end times, wouldja look at what time it is now!"

"For all works and things, which are either commanded or forbidden by God and thus have been instituted by the supreme Majesty, are 'musts.' Nevertheless, no one should be dragged to them or away from them by the hair, for I can drive no man to heaven or beat him into it with a club."