Religion In Society Quotes - Page 2

• Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Religious, Atheist, People

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• Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

  Epicurus

  Atheist, Faith Religion, Omnipotence

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• There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.

  Victor Hugo

  Teacher, Atheist, Religion

  "The History of a Crime". Book by Victor Hugo, 1877.

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• Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.

  Clarence Darrow

  People, Laughing, Religion

  Clarence Darrow's remarks at a debate with religious leaders in Kansas City, as quoted in a Emanuel Haldeman-Julius' eulogy for Clarence Darrow, 1938.

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• This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

  John Adams

  Religious, Atheist, If There Is A God

  John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams”

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• The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Faith, Spiritual, Religious

  Benjamin Franklin (1987). “Poor Richard's Almanack: Being the Choicest Morsels of Wisdom, Written During the Years of the Almanack's Publication”, p.16, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

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• Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

  Epicurus

  God, Spiritual, Religious

  454 Copy quote

• But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?

  John Adams

  Christian, Religious, Faith Religion

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.235

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• Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

  Epicurus

  Atheist, Omnipotence, If There Is A God

  38 Copy quote

• Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Atheist, Mind, Religion

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. February 18, 2004.

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• I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

  Douglas Adams

  Inspirational, Life, Atheist

  Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry (2012). “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time”, p.87, Pan Macmillan

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• I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Atheist, Religion, President

  "Christianity: the One, the Many: What Christianity Might Have Been and Could Still Become, Volume 1". Book by John F. Nash (p. 11), February 14, 2008.

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• Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Spiritual, Religious, Atheist

  James C. Humes, Benjamin Franklin (1995). “The wit and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: a treasury of more than 900 quotations and anecdotes”, Harpercollins

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• Gods are fragile things, they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.

  Chapman Cohen

  Spiritual, Religious, Atheist

  "An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism" by Gordon Stein, Prometheus Books, (p. 258), 1980.

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• I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.

  Clarence Darrow

  Death, Mother, Atheist

  Speech, Toronto, Canada, 1930

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• Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.

  Sigmund Freud

  Strength, Death, Spiritual

  Sigmund Freud (1952). “Major Works”

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• If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.

  Isaac Asimov

  Spiritual, Atheist, Fear

  Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.481, Bantam

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• 

  Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Adams

  Bible, God, Religious

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.229

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• A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

  James Kern Feibleman

  Atheist, Believe, Cynical

  Understanding Philosophy ch. 3 (1973)

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• Prayer is of no avail. The lightning falls on the just and the unjust in accordance with natural laws.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Prayer, Fall, Law

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• The God of the Old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christian, Wisdom, Religious

  "Points of friction". Book by Agnes Repplier, "Consolations of the Conservative", 1920.

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• Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

  Isaac Asimov

  Death, Atheist, If There Is A God

  Isaac Asimov (1995). “Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters”, Doubleday Books

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• Men rarely if ever dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Dream, Atheist, Children

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.227, Penguin

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• The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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