Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.
In religion and politics, people's belief's and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin".
Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man ... living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.
When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself.
If there were no God, there would be no atheists.
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.
For good people to do evil things, it takes religion.
An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? No, said the priest, not if you did not know. Then why, asked the Inuit earnestly, did you tell me?
The most heinous and the most cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives.
or simply:
