The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
I hold that religion and faith are two different things.
For me, Anthony Powell is a religion. I read 'A Dance to the Music of Time' every few years.
Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion.
Islam is a violent, I was going to say religion, but it's not a religion. It's a political system. It's a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination. That is the ultimate aim.
Teach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that is religion!
We aim in the domain of politics at republicanism; in the domain of economics at socialism; in the domain of what is today called religion, at atheism.
The intersection of religion and world politics has often been a bloody crossroads.
Religion is one dimension of culture, a transcendent element of it.
The United States is not a nation based upon race, creed, or religion - we are a nation based upon our loyalty and allegiance to our country and her principles.
I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them, but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I'm here.
Religion is run by thought police. 'Obey. Listen. This is what you do. Don't ask questions. Go die for your country.' The spirituality says, 'Okay, you can die for your country, but know what you're doing while you're doing it.'
First of all, my persuasion is what really breeds violence is political differences. But because religion serves as the soul of community, it gets drawn into the fracas and turns up the heat.
Neither of my parents are involved in politics or anything like that, but my dad is political, certainly, and we would have always talked about politics and religion and money, and all those things that you're not supposed to talk about at the dinner table, we did.
Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion all have a double aspect - freedom of thought and freedom of action.
I am utterly struck how, 300 years after his execution, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.
All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.
The self-help section of national bookstore chains in America is one of the largest sections. In a way, it's nothing new, and in another way, very new. People have always searched for answers; that's why we have religion. People have always been seeking some relief from their own mortality.
There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true.
Being a Southerner, I'm interested in sex, violence, religion and all the things that make life interesting.
One of the great benefits of organised religion is that you can be forgiven your sins, which must be a wonderful thing. I mean, I carry my sins around with me, there's nobody there to forgive them.
The problem is that religion tends to give people bad reasons to be good.
I'm always going back to one thing - my family... It's my family, my religion, my fighters. Put them in any order you want.
I was told to challenge every spiritual teacher, every world leader to utter the one sentence that no religion, no political party, and no nation on the face of the earth will dare utter: 'Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.
The European wars of religion were more deadly than the First World War, proportionally speaking, and in the range of the Second World War in Europe. The Inquisition, the persecution of heretics and infidels and witches, they racked up pretty high death tolls.
I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion.
In examining the evidence of the Christian religion, it is essential to the discovery of truth that we bring to the investigation a mind freed, as far as possible, from existing prejudice, and open to conviction.
You might think that religion was the one area in which professional jealousy would take a back seat. But no: ecclesiastical memoirs are as viperish as any, though their envy tends to cloak itself in piety.
I do not value religion chiefly for its morality.
Religion, as it is understood in the West, does not lead toward progress, and science does not lead toward humanism.
Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.
No great advance has been made in science, politics, or religion without controversy.
It's funny that there was so much disturbance about having a Catholic in the White House with Kennedy, and when we finally get a religion in the White House that's causing a lot of conflicts, and concerns, and disturbances for a lot of people, it's in the Bush Administration.
Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism; and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.
