Interesting Quotes on Religion and Philosophy - All Sides

[Miss Darcy]

So it's both sides, creationist, and evolutionist - Christian, and atheist - but no. Not both sides. All sides. Natural philosophy. Eastern mysticism, philosophy, spiritualism. Buddhism. All sorts. Let them either be inspirational, heartwarming, or at least witty and amusing. But please remember, that these are only quotes, and the only person responsible for them is their creator - not God - but the person quoted. Your own ideas can easily be discussed elsewhere; but of course, you are welcome to add your comments.

My idea is this: everyone adds a quote/some quotes on to the thread. They can be long, or short - interesting, or boring. Just kidding. Let them *all* be interesting. To somebody or other.

I'll start:

In my opinion, God did not create man - man created God. - Anonymous

And it is in his own image, let us remember, that Man creates God.

Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.

Number of Atheists in 2001:

121 million in Asia
56 million in the former USSR
23 million (3.5%) in Europe
2.7 million in Latin America
1.6 million (0.5%) in North America
0.4 million in Oceania
0.4 million in Africa 8
American Atheists claim that almost 30 million Americans are Atheists.

Mark Twain - Letters from Earth...That innocent Bible tells about the Creation. Of what -- the universe? Yes, the universe. In six days!

God did it. He did not call it the universe -- that name is modern. His whole attention was upon this world. He constructed it in five days -- and then? It took him only one day to make twenty million suns and eighty million planets!

What were they for -- according to this idea? To furnish light for this little toy-world. That was his whole purpose; he had no other. One of the twenty million suns (the smallest one) was to light it in the daytime, the rest were to help one of the universe's countless moons modify the darkness of its nights.

Buddha told a parable in sutra:

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

The story is as sweet as that strawberry. I first read it ages ago in a book called "Wisdom of the World" or something like that. Very enjoyable, philosophical, true book.

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

Very deep. This story was also in the book, though a different retelling, of course.

I think that will do, for now. But as I said, feel free to add on quotes of wit and wisdom, to do with religion or philosophy.



Peace out,

Miss Darcy

[Molko]

"Without belief in God or immortality, evil-doing is not only necessary, but permissible..." Fyodor Dostoevsky

[byquist]

"One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity." - M. Eddy

[Jay]

There's something in every atheist, itching to believe, and something in every believer, itching to doubt. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

My religious position: I think that God could do a lot better, and I'm willing to give Him the chance. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

God made so many different kinds of people. Why would he allow only one way to serve him? ~Martin Buber

In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion more seriously than the practitioners. ~Jonathon Miller

I refuse to be labeled immoral merely because I am godless. ~Peter Walker

There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave. ~Louis Kronenberger

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?" ~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (this one's funny )

The biblical account of Noah's Ark and the Flood is perhaps the most implausible story for fundamentalists to defend. Where, for example, while loading his ark, did Noah find penguins and polar bears in Palestine? ~Judith Hayes

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means. ~George Bernard Shaw

Everyday people are straying away from the church and going back to God. ~Lennie Bruce, The Essential Lennie Bruce, 1972

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. ~Jonathan Swift

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools. ~Author Unknown

guess I better shut up now before I find looootsa more

[amuse]

the tests and the penguins ones are Cuuute!

[Basil]

"Atheists do not believe in God--choosing instead to worship their own smug sense of superiority."

The Daily Show

[byquist]

Jay,, thanks for the laughs!

[Jay]

*bows* born to serve

[Taliesin]

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?" ~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (this one's funny )

This reminds us something,... oh, yes, it was this:

The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.

[crisaor]

Everybody, thanks for the quotes. Here is a tale by Stevenson I thought you might find interesting, it's called faith, half faith, and no faith at all :

In the ancient days there went three men upon pilgrimage; one was a priest, and one was a virtuous person, and the third was an old rover with his axe.

As they went, the priest spoke about the grounds of faith.

"We find the proofs of our religion in the works of nature," said he, and beat his breast.

"That is true," said the virtuous person.

"The peacock has a scrannel voice," said the priest, "as has been laid down always in our books. How cheering!" he cried, in a voice like one that wept. "How comforting!"

"I require no such proofs," said the virtuous person.

"Then you have no reasonable faith," said the priest.

"Great is the right, and shall prevail!" cried the virtuous person. "There is loyalty in my soul; be sure, there is loyalty in the mind of Odin."

"These are but playings upon words," returned the priest. "A sackful of such trash is nothing to the peacock."

Just then they passed a country farm, where there was a peacock seated on a rail; and the bird opened its mouth and sang with the voice of a nightingale.

"Where are you now?" asked the virtuous person. "And yet this shakes not me! Great is the truth, and shall prevail!"

"The devil fly away with that peacock!" said the priest; and he was downcast for a mile or two.

But presently they came to a shrine, where a Fakeer performed miracles.

"Ah!" said the priest, "here are the true grounds of faith. The peacock was but an adminicle. This is the base of our religion."

And he beat upon his breast, and groaned like one with colic.

"Now to me," said the virtuous person, "all this is as little to the purpose as the peacock. I believe because I see the right is great and must prevail; and this Fakeer might carry on with his conjuring tricks till doomsday, and it would not play bluff upon a man like me."

Now at this the Fakeer was so much incensed that his hand trembled; and, lo! in the midst of a miracle the cards fell from up his sleeve.

"Where are you now?" asked the virtuous person. "And yet it shakes not me!"

"The devil fly away with the Fakeer!" cried the priest. "I really do not see the good of going on with this pilgrimage."

"Cheer up!" cried the virtuous person. "Great is the right, and shall prevail!"

"If you are quite sure it will prevail," says the priest.

"I pledge my word for that," said the virtuous person.

So the other began to go on again with a better heart.

At last one came running, and told them all was lost: that the powers of darkness had besieged the Heavenly Mansions, that Odin was to die, and evil triumph.

"I have been grossly deceived," cried the virtuous person.

"All is lost now," said the priest.

"I wonder if it is too late to make it up with the devil?" said the virtuous person.

"Oh, I hope not," said the priest. "And at any rate we can but try. But what are you doing with your axe?" says he to the rover.

"I am off to die with Odin," said the rover.

[Dyrwen]

I've got a buttload, but I highlighted the few that are extra special, heh.

"Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination." -Edward Abbey

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move." -Douglas Adams

"If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever." -- Woody Allen

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." - Isaac Asimov

"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night." - Isaac Asimov

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." -Isaac Asimov

"To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs." - Ghose Aurobindo

"What good is searching if there's nothing there to find?" - Bad Religion

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself." - Richard Burton

"It's hard to be religious when so many people are not struck down by lightning." -Calvin, "Calvin and Hobbes"

"A faith that cannot survive a collision with the truth is not worth many regrets." -Arthur C. Clarke

"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." -Arthur C. Clarke

"If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good." -Morris Cohen

"I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose." -Clarence Darrow

"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God." -Thomas Edison

"If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." -Anatole France

"Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy to investigate." -F.M. Knowles

"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -Delo McKown

"It is wiser to find out than suppose." -Mark Twain

"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle."-Kahlil Gibran

"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it." -Andre Gide

"Faith is a euphemism for prejudice and religion is a euphemism for superstition." -Paul Keller

"The fool wonders, the wise man asks." -Benjamin Disraeli

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." -Voltaire

"Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them."-Peter Ustinov

"The church is near, but the road is icy. The bar is far, but we will walk carefully." - Russian Proverb

"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives." -A. Sachs

"We must respect the other fellow's religion,but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." -H. L. Mencken

"If we are going to teach creation science as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction." - Judith Hayes

"Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything." - Robert A. Heinlein

"There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave." - Louis Kronenberger

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." - Dalai Lama

"In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion more seriously than the practitioners." - Jonathon Miller

"One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned at the stake while the votes were being counted." - Thomas Reed

"A cult is a religion with no political power." - Tom Wolfe

"Prayer - the last refuge of a scoundrel." -Lisa Simpson

"Look, you can either accept science and face reality or you can believe in angels and live in a childish dream world." -Lisa Simpson

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick

"Hell must be a pretty swell spot, because the guys that invented religion have sure been trying hard to keep everybody else out." - Al Capone

"Fundamentalism isn't about religion. It's about power." -Salman Rushdie

"If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God." -Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

"An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support." - Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

"Myths which are believed in tend to become true..." - George Orwell

"If the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?" -Robert G. Ingersoll

"Jesus' last words on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" hardly seem like the words of a man who planned it that way. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure there is something wrong here." -Rev. Donald Morgan

"If you take the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible IS the wind and the rain." - Carol McGrath, a Native American

"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is call insanity. When many people suffer from a deluson, it is call a religion." - Robert M. Pirsig

"The world holds two classes of men -- intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence." [Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri (973-1057; Syrian poet)]

"I live my life to learn, when I die, if there is nothing after, I will not care. If there IS something, death will be opening a whole new opportunity for learning. Where is the downside?" -Sib, friend of mine

[amuse]

after a brief persusal (will look more later): i like what Capone and the Dalai Lama had to say.

[subterranean]

Yours are very interesting Dyr..thanks a bunch

[Miss Darcy]

*Folds her arms in satisfaction* This has turned out great! Everyone's added such cool quotes. Very fun to read.

I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one mortal blemish of mankind.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

I wouldn't go that far, but...

For out of fear and need each religion is born, creeping into existence on the byways of reason.

- Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human, All Too Human"

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. - Albert Einstein

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. - Albert Einstein

I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it. - Benjamin Franklin

Beware the man of a single book.

- Bertrand Russell

The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs.

- Bill Maher

God favors no group. Only religions do that.

- Bumper Sticker


My deeply held belief is that if a god anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts... if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves.

-Carl Sagan

Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.

- Chapman Cohen

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

-Charles Bukowski

I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true, for if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.

-Charles Darwin

Which makes two scientists whom I thought to be Christians atheists. Wow. What a relief!

Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understand those that lie beyond.

-Hypatia of Alexandria, the one whom the "churchmen leading a superstitious mob grabbed out of her chariot and brutally murdered her, hacking her body apart and burning the pieces outside the city walls."

Must go.

Miss Darcy

[Taliesin]

Which makes two scientists whom I thought to be Christians atheists. Wow. What a relief!

You know the legend of how Darwin became an atheist?
If we are not mistaken, he saw a wasp lay her eggs in another bug so that when they were hatched, they ate it. Darwin could not believe that God would allow such cruelty and pain and became an atheist.
Or something like that.