Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously.
We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.
A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one.
What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal god.
Religion shows a pattern of heredity which I think is similar to genetic heredity. ... There are hundreds of different religious sects, and every religious person is loyal to just one of these. ... The overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one their parents belonged to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained-glass, the best music when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing compared to the matter of heredity.
Ask a scientist a very profound question on his science, and he will be silent. Ask a religious person a very simple question on his religion, and he will be frenzied.
I respect all religions, but I'm not a deeply religious person. But I try and live life in the right way, respecting other people. I wasn't brought up in a religious way, but I believe there's something out there that looks after you.
I have encountered a few "creationists" and because they were usually nice, intelligent people, I have been unable to decide whether they were really mad or only pretending to be mad. If I was a religious person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer who has created the whole vast fossil record for the sole purpose of misleading humankind?
Let me insist and emphasise it because I would like all of my sannyasins to be creative in some way. To me, creativity is of tremendous import. An uncreative person is not a religious person at all.
A religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt about the significance of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation
The final battles are the samskaras of good karma. They prevent Samadhi. Naturally for a religious person the avoidance is intensive. They are so hung up on good karma and on method.
Spiritually, trees play a unique role in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, from the Garden of Eden to the Cross of Christ. Biologically, in great forest communities, they help sustain life on our planet, giving off oxygen, anchoring soil, keeping stream and rivers clear, and providing habitation for thousands of species. How can religious persons not care about the widespread destruction of these creatures of God? We need to love them as our very selves, as neighbors in earth's community of life.
I consider myself a religious person. God is something very personal with me and I don't flaunt religion in conversation with others.
I am a religious person, although I am not a believer.
One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organizations do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.
or simply: