Quotes about religious
religious believe men
His [Calvin's] religion was demonism. If ever man worshiped a false God, he did. The being described in his five points is ... a demon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin Thomas Jefferson
religious jesus ignorance
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him (i.e. Jesus) by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. Thomas Jefferson
religious struggle liberty
In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object. Thomas Jefferson
religious government order
We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries. Thomas Jefferson
religious reading school
No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination. Thomas Jefferson
religious school visitors
Ministers of the Gospel are excluded [from serving as Visitors of the county Elementary Schools] to avoid jealousy from the other sects, were the public education committed to the ministers of a particular one; and with more reason than in the case of their exclusion from the legislative and executive functions. Thomas Jefferson
religious christianity clergy
The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy]. Thomas Jefferson
religious ideas growth
I had no idea, however, that in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration and freedom of religion, it [fanaticism] could have arisen to the height you describe. This must be owing to the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to denunciation. Thomas Jefferson
religious views people
I have never conceived that having been in public life required me to belie my sentiments, or to conceal them. Opinion and the just maintenance of it shall never be a crime in my view, nor bring injury on the individual. I never will by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance. I never had an opinion in politics or religion which I was afraid to own; a reserve on these subjects might have procured me more esteem from some people, but less from myself. Thomas Jefferson
religious conversation persons
I consider myself a religious person. God is something very personal with me and I don't flaunt religion in conversation with others. Richard Chamberlain
religious jesus religion
Me and Jesus got our own thing going on. We don't need anybody to tell us what it's all about. Tom T. Hall
religious littles obsessed
I've been a little bit obsessed with religion, without being a religious person, for about a decade. Tom Perrotta
religious real government
From the standpoint of freedom of speech and the press, it is enough to point out that the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them... It is not the business of government to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine. Tom C. Clark
religious attitude struggle
Sure I am a religious man who is also passionate about conserving the environment. But I am also a CEO, with all the bad habits and attitudes that are natural to the species. . . . I am still naturally self-interested, overconfident, full of pride, and eager to control a meeting as any CEO in America. Every day, I struggle with my ego. Tom Chappell
religious views government
After lengthy consideration, my views have evolved sufficiently to support marriage equality legislation. This position doesn't require any religious denomination to alter any of its tenets; it simply forbids government from discrimination regarding who can marry whom. Tim Johnson
religious believe years
The more I sought truth uncorrupted by years of religious history, the more I kept finding answers I didn’t want to find. Emotionally, it would have been easiest for me to just hold on to what I grew up believing, but mentally that wasn’t an option anymore. Tim Lambesis
religious war people
We're in a religious war and we need to aggressively oppose secular humanism; these people are as religiously motivated as we are and they are filled with the devil. Tim LaHaye
religious vote oath
I'm not going to change my religious practice to get one vote, but I know how to take an oath and uphold the law, and if you elect me I will uphold the law. Tim Kaine
religious philosophy buddhism
Buddhism has become a socially recognized religious philosophy for Americans, whereas it used to be considered an exotic religion. Thurston Moore
religious land political
Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion. Sam Ervin
religious children teaching
If religious freedom is to endure in America, the responsibility for teaching religion to public school children must be left to the homes and churches of our land, where this responsibility rightfully belongs. It must not be assumed by the government through the agency of the public school system. Sam Ervin
religious wall communication
I believe in a wall between church and state so high that no one can climb over it. When religion controls government, political liberty dies; and when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes. Every American has the constitutional right not to be taxed or have his tax money expended for the establishment of religion. For too long the issue of government aid to church related organizations has been a divisive force in our society and in the Congress. It has erected communication barriers among our religions and fostered intolerance. Sam Ervin
religious government political
When religion controls government, political liberty dies; and when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes. Sam Ervin
religious intelligent healthy
Liberals tend to understand that a person can be lucky or unlucky in all matters relevant to his success. Conservatives, however, often make a religious fetish of individualism. Many seem to have absolutely no awareness of how fortunate one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be able to work. One must be lucky to be intelligent, physically healthy, and not bankrupted in middle age by the illness of a spouse. Sam Harris
religious doe problem
The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism. Sam Harris
religious religion facts
Religious faith obscures uncertainty where uncertainty . . . exists, allowing the unknown, the implausible, and the . . . false to achieve primacy over the facts. Sam Harris
religious familiar critical
Anyone familiar with my work knows that I am extremely critical of all religious faiths. Sam Harris
religious real guarantees-that
Nothing guarantees that reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. It is time we recognized that this spirit of mutual inquiry, which is the foundation of all real science, is the very antithesis of religious faith. Sam Harris
religious ideas mind
The idea, therefore, that religious faith is somehow a sacred human convention—distinguished, as it is, both by the extravagance of its claims and by the paucity of its evidence—is really too great a monstrosity to be appreciated in all its glory. Religious faith represents so uncompromising a misuse of the power of our minds that it forms a kind of perverse, cultural singularity—a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible. Sam Harris
religious believe people
My concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own. That's not to say that all religious people are lunatics or idiots. It's anything but that. Sam Harris
religious war ideas
While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its liabilities. Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapable of criticizing ideas that are now patently absurd and increasingly maladaptive. Sam Harris
religious believe winning
Religious faith is the only area of discourse where immunity through conversation is considered noble . It's the only area of our lives where someone can win points for saying, "There's nothing that you can do to change my mind and I'm taking no state of the world ultimately into account in believing what I believe. There's nothing to change about the world that would cause me to revise my beliefs. Sam Harris
religious honesty self
All I'm arguing for really is that we should have a conversation where the best ideas really thrive, where there's no taboo against criticizing bad ideas, and where everyone who shows up, in order to get their ideas entertained, has to meet some obvious burdens of intellectual rigor and self-criticism and honesty-and when people fail to do that, we are free to stop listening to them. What religion has had up until this moment is a different set of rules that apply only to it, which is you have to respect my religious certainty even though I'm telling you I arrived at it irrationally. Sam Harris