#religion

"There is only one language, the language of the Heart. There is only one religion, the religion of Love."

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."

"... challenge the church to do better, be more of who Christ wants us to be ..."

"God's gifts put men's best dreams to shame."

"religion is about having the right answers, and some of their answers are right... but i am about the process that takes you to the living answer... it will change you from the inside. there are a lot of smart people who are able to say a lot of right things from their brain because they have been told what the right answers are, but they don't know me at all."

"The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next."

"Religion's just a well-oiled profit-driven denial of the randomness of it all."

"salvation is for the feeble, that's what I think. I don't want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the superb."

"Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments – and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education."

"I believe in rendering to science the things that belong to science. I have no problem with evolution or discussions of the age of the Earth, for I don't believe that we come anywhere near comprehending the mind of God or the workings of the universe. Science can explain a lot, but it cannot give us faith, and I think we need both."

"To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means."

"People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.-- Circular Letter to My Friends in Italy"

"As a child abuse and neglect therapist I do battle daily with Christians enamored of the Old Testament phrase "Spare the rod and spoil the child."No matter how far I stretch my imagination, it does not stretch far enough to include the image of a cool dude like Jesus taking a rod to a kid."

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

"I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it."

"And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires."

"There is no unmoving mover behind the movement. It is only movement. It is not correct to say that life is moving, but life is movement itself. Life and movement are not two different things. In other words, there is no thinker behind the thought. Thought itself is the thinker. If you remove the thought, there is no thinker to be found."

"Vampires, like virgins or priests, are things that women believe in. We must never fail to humor them in such matters."

"Once, when a religionist denounced me in unmeasured terms, I sent him a card saying, "I am sure you believe that I will go to hell when I die, and that once there I will suffer all the pains and tortures the sadistic ingenuity of your deity can devise and that this torture will continue forever. Isn't that enough for you? Do you have to call me bad names in addition?"

"Grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God."