Latest Susan Jacoby Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I have received many touching letters and emails from people who live in the most religious parts of the country, in places like rural Texas, saying it is so good to see someone be able to say I am an atheist without shame.

  Susan Jacoby

  Country, Religious, Atheist

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I'm not saying that I think atheists are better than other people. God, no. What I am saying is I do feel that this an integral part of who I am. And it's not something that I could comfortably think of not sharing with the person I loved most in the world.

  Susan Jacoby

  Atheist, Thinking, Who I Am

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I can no more imagine falling in love with someone who believed that than I can imagine falling in love with someone who believes that blacks shouldn't be able to vote and are inferior to whites.

  Susan Jacoby

  Falling In Love, Believe, Able

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• My atheism doesn't define my day-to-day life at all. But I realize - and maybe it is because, unlike people who sort of stay comfortably in a religion, I had to do a lot of thinking and reading before I realized that I was an atheist.

  Susan Jacoby

  Atheist, Reading, Thinking

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• It's something fundamental to me, human rights that people are equal under law simply because they are human beings. And I can no more imagine falling in love with someone who believed, for instance, as Orthodox Jews do, that women are unclean during their menstrual periods.

  Susan Jacoby

  Falling In Love, Rights, Law

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I think people who love each other and live together and have children together need to agree on the things that are most important in life.

  Susan Jacoby

  Children, Thinking, People

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I can't imagine falling in love with a devoutly religious person.

  Susan Jacoby

  Religious, Falling In Love, Imagine

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I completely can't understand people of different faiths who say that their children will choose when they grow up. I think that if you believe in a religion, most people believe that it's right.

  Susan Jacoby

  Children, Growing Up, Believe

• If you believe in what I do, which is secular humanism, I would find it extremely difficult to live with someone - not to love someone - but to live with somebody and build a life of someone who disagreed with me on something so fundamental.

  Susan Jacoby

  Believe, Fundamentals, Difficult

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I believe that whether one believes in God or not is - it's very central to who I am.

  Susan Jacoby

  Believe, Who I Am, I Believe

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I feel culturally Jewish because of the way that I have lived my adult life.

  Susan Jacoby

  Adults, Way, Feels

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I still do find the prayers of the Kaddish quite moving, and I just substitute in my mind nature, although that's what the founders did in a lot of their documents, too. They substituted nature or providence for God. I think that's what I do in my head with Jewish God.

  Susan Jacoby

  Prayer, Moving, Thinking

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I feel Jewish in the sense of culturally Jewish, I suppose the way Bernie Sanders feels Jewish, but not Jewish in a religious sense.

  Susan Jacoby

  Religious, Way, Feels

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I no more believe in the God of the Jews than I believe in any God.

  Susan Jacoby

  Believe, I Believe, I Believe In

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I don't see why any president has to talk about his belief in God.

  Susan Jacoby

  President, Belief, Belief In God

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• A person can be religious and still respect secular values and not talk about Jesus all the time as though every American believed in Jesus.

  Susan Jacoby

  Religious, Jesus, Secular

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• God Bless America started to become an almost ritualistic incantation at the end of political speeches really with Ronald Reagan. It appears occasionally before, but it was not that common. And of course since it was a song that wasn't written by Irving Berlin until the 20th century (laughter), none of the 19th century presidents said God Bless America at the end of speeches, either. I think that the symbolism which suggests that everybody is religious and that even presidents who believe in church and state feel obliged to do this.

  Susan Jacoby

  Song, Religious, Laughter

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I don't ever participate in debates about the existence or nonexistence of God because I can't imagine why anyone would be persuaded one way or the other by such things.

  Susan Jacoby

  Would Be, Way, Debate

• I don't deny that religion is very healthful to a lot of people. And as long as they don't try to convert me, I have, you know, nothing - and to interfere with the rights of people to believe other religions or to not believe in any religion at all - as long as they mind their own religion - perfectly all right with me...

  Susan Jacoby

  Believe, Rights, Long

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• Atheism is not a religion. One of the things, in fact, that atheism lacks are the kinds of rituals that religion does provide and I would be the first to say that.

  Susan Jacoby

  Atheism, Doe, Would Be

• For one thing, the Catholic Church in particular has this one thing - confession - in which you could go, confess to a priest and obtain absolution of your sins. And there was a routine and a ritual and I think - I think that it did help.

  Susan Jacoby

  Thinking, Catholic, Church

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• I'd be the last person in the world to deny that there are many people for whom faith is - can be a great sustaining force.

  Susan Jacoby

  People, World, Lasts

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• Once the Roman Catholic Church in the West became the church most closely connected with the state, the Roman Catholic Church did not recognize the validity of any religion other than its own.

  Susan Jacoby

  Catholic, Church, West

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• One of the interesting things is is that Judaism was very attractive to the Roman aristocracy.

  Susan Jacoby

  Interesting, Aristocracy, Attractive

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

• The Roman Empire was fairly tolerant of religious choice as long as you made a point not of thumbing your nose in public at the Roman gods.

  Susan Jacoby

  Religious, Long, Choices

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.