Religion cannot and should not be replaced by atheism. Religion needs to go away and not be replaced by anything. Atheism is not a religion. It's the absence of religion, and that's a wonderful thing.
There are two factors in American politics that may seem strange to Europeans: race and religion.
I was little there were times I wanted my parents to be normal. I wanted them to have a religion. I wanted them to have a job, like the parents of every other kid I went to school with.
Martyrdom is evidence only of a man's honesty - it is no evidence that he is not mistaken. Men have suffered martyrdom for all sorts of opinions in politics and in religion; yet they could not therefore have all been in the right; although they could give no stronger evidence that they believed themselves in the right.
Religion is often just tribalism: pride in a group one was born into, a group that is often believed to have 'God' on its side.
When theology erodes and organization crumbles, when the institutional framework of religion begins to break up, the search for a direct experience which people can feel to be religious facilitates the rise of cults.
I'm not really any religion. I still study with Jehovah's Witnesses, so I say I'm Apostolic Pentecostal Jehovah's Witness Seventh-Day Adventist Jew.
Any simple claim that you need religion to be good is flat wrong.
You can't understand European history at all other than through religion, or English literature either if you can't recognise biblical allusions.
Whence, then, did the cathedral derive its power? Clearly here: It took back the family into the confidences of religion. It taught man and woman how the human and the divine love could go hand in hand.
The truth of the matter is that when you write about religion like I do, you're writing about something that people take very seriously.
Tourism is a very big economic benefit to the Sherpa people, and also, they have very strong ties to their own social attitudes and their own religion, so fortunately, they're not too influenced by many of our Western attitudes.
I got to thinking about the Book of Revelation that was written by a Jewish prophet who was also a follower of Jesus who hated the Roman Empire. I realized that the Book of Revelation could be a way to reflect on the issue of religion's relationship to politics.
People don't talk about religion a lot in Hollywood because it's not an incredibly safe place to do it.
We are pre-disposed for fantasy, there is a natural impulse for human beings to want to get off their heads or out of their heads in something in a substance or a drink or an idea or a religion which will comfort them and make life exciting.
God is God, but he has various names in different languages, and each strand of monotheistic religion has multiple ways of describing the godhead.
Religion provides us with a puritanical dream, which can never be realized because it goes against human nature.
From a constitutional standpoint, the religion of a candidate is supposed to make no difference. Even before the founding fathers dreamed up the First Amendment, they inserted a provision in the Constitution expressly prohibiting any religious test for office.
Mormons know that it's not enough to practise your religion - you also have to spread your religion.
Cultural values are, in themselves, neutral as well as universal, and so much depends on how individuals or ethnic groups use them. Values are influenced by so many factors such as geography, climate, religion, the economy and technology.
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
I never close a door on any other religion. Most of the time, some part of it makes sense to me. I don't believe everyone has to chant just because I chant. I believe all religion is about touching something inside of yourself.
I have great respect for the religion. I know a lot of people that are Muslim and are phenomenal people.
Atheism is a religion itself complete with fanatics and bigots.
If someone doesn't have a reason to not like you in America, they talk politics or religion. Then they get to hate you and we get to be enemies.
You can't confuse safety with religion or national origin.
I was never raised with the traditional story of creation in religion, and because of that I think I had a lot of questions. And evolution, the evolutionary narrative, helped provide some of that for me.
My social philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words: liberty, equality and fraternity. Let no one, however, say that I have borrowed by philosophy from the French Revolution. I have not. My philosophy has roots in religion and not in political science. I have derived them from the teachings of my Master, the Buddha.
I learned to think about religion, race and sex through the complex and often unattractive medium of jokes.
The thing about me is, I don't care what religion you are. If someone is attacking your religion, I will have your back, and I will defend you. I think that is the most repulsive thing a person can do, attack another person's faith.
Religion has nothing to do with spirituality.
It was really intense for me to start having conversations with God, when according to the man-made laws in my religion - to be homosexual is evil.
If we have to give up either religion or education, we should give up education.
But like a born actor who only really wants to direct, Gingrich has always been unsatisfied with what he's brilliant at. He can't still his hunger to deliver grand pronouncements on life, liberalism, conservatism, religion and whatever else swims into his consciousness.
My three obsessions are mental illness, horror and religion.
Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion.
