#religion

"Theology is ignorance with wings."

"Religion is still useful among the herd - that it helps their orderly conduct as nothing else could. The crude human animal is in-eradicably superstitious, and there is every biological reason why they should be. Take away his Christian god and saints, and he will worship something else..."

"The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive."

"We are not as Christ-centered and cross-cherishing as we should be, because we do not ponder the truth that everything good, and everything bad that God turns for the good, was purchased by the sufferings of Christ."

"Above all else, guard your heart for it affects everything else you do."

"I will not join the rat race because I'm not a rat. And I will not blindly follow a specific faith because I'm not a bat. The only race I'll take part in is for humans being humane. It's called the human race, and sadly it's got the least participants."

"Faith is believing in something you know isn't true."

"Be brave. Be free from philosophies, prophets and holy lies. Go deep into your feelings and explore the mystery of your body, mind and soul. You will find the truth."

"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."

"I was born a heretic. I always distrusted people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows."

"I don't see,' I said, 'how people stand being old. Your insides all dry up. When you're young you're so self-reliant. You don't even need much religion."

"What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives."

"Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love - but sometimes it was so hard to love."

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

"I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly."

"A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged."

"Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn."

"Don't follow a defeated foe. Follow Christ. It is costly. You will be an exile in this age. But you will be free."