There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower. Koran 2:256
Lo! religion with Allah (is) the Surrender (to His Will and Guidance). Those who (formerly) received the Scripture differed only after knowledge came unto them, through transgression among themselves. Whoso disbelieveth the revelations of Allah (will find that) lo! Allah is swift at reckoning. Koran 3:19
Say (O Muhammad): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, and that which was vouchsafed unto Moses and Jesus and the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered. Koran 3:84
He it is Who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the Religion of Truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religion, however much the idolaters may be averse. Koran 9:33
Where God builds a church, the Devil will build a chapel. Mid-16th century proverb
I say that creeds, dogmas, and theologies are inventions of the mind. It is the nature of the mind to make sense out of experience, to reduce the conglomerates of experience to units of comprehension which we call principles, or ideologies, or concepts. Religious experience is dynamic, fluid, effervescent, yeasty. But the mind can’t handle these so it has to imprison religious experience in some way, get it bottled up. Then, when the experience quiets down, the mind draws a bead on it and extracts concepts, notions, dogmas, so that religious experience can make sense to the mind. Meanwhile religious experience goes on experiencing, so that by the time I get my dogma stated so that I can think about it, the religious experience becomes an object of thought. Howard Thurman, interview BBC
If there is a God, atheism must seem less of an insult than religion. Edmond de Goncourt
I don’t go along with the mumbo jumbo side of it. Derek – The Special, Hannah, Channel 4 2014
It’s an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don’t try to make it posthumous. Gloria Steinem
If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. H P Lovecraft
One man’s religion is another man’s belly laugh. Robert A Heinlein
People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction. Umberto Eco, The Prague Cemetery
Nonviolence is the greatest religion. Mahavira
I don’t know if anyone else will find this helpful, but I did a lot better in my transition out of Mormonism when I recognized that I had experienced a tremendous loss when I realized the church wasn’t true.
Seeing the Kubler-Ross model helped me see where I was in my recovery or grieving process.
... For me, it went something like this:
1) Denial: For several years I refused to accept the logical conclusions of the evidence about the church. I had a testimony, so there obviously were answers somewhere. It was true, period. So, I put a lot on the ‘shelf’ and pretended it wasn’t real.
2) Anger: I probably went through two years of real anger toward the church. I used to flip off our stake center in Texas when I would drive by.
3) Bargaining: I made all kinds of compromises and promises with God and my family just to put things back the way they had been before. Didn’t work.
4) Depression: Considering I attempted suicide in June of 2007, I’d say that qualifies.
5) Acceptance: I have my moments, but mostly I’m OK with life as it is. I know my wife will never look into the problems with the church. For a long time I wanted so badly for her to just listen, but she wouldn’t. I finally had to be OK with her not knowing, as long as she was OK with me. I go to sacrament meetings fairly often with my wife, and that’s OK. I used to roll my eyes and grind my teeth a lot, but now I mostly just take it as an hour of observing a culture. It’s kind of entertaining. Runtu, RFM board post 15th June 2012, ‘Apostasy and the Five Stages of Grief’
I think the greatest gift of the Soviet Union to modern civilization was the dethronement of the clergy and the refusal to let religion be taught in the public schools. W E B du Bois
The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state ...
The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard. Henry David Thoreau, ‘I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D Thoreau’
Just before I was forty I became a Catholic. I’ve come to wondering if I’d be born in another place could I just as easily have been a Jew or a Muslim … I assume it’s the same God. My Mediterranean with Adrian Chiles, BBC 2016
It was only the Christians, specifically the Evangelicals, who beg to differ. My Mediterranean with Adrian Chiles II
What I don’t get is those who think they have a monopoly of the truth … the Christians are the worst of this. ibid.
At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytising zeal on behalf of religious or political idols. Aldous Huxley
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: ‘Stop. Don’t do it.’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ he asked.
‘Well, there’s so much to live for!’
‘Like what?’
‘Are you religious?’
He said: ‘Yes.’
I said: ‘Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?’
‘Christian.’
‘Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?’
‘Protestant.’
‘Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?’
‘Baptist.’
‘Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?’
‘Baptist Church of God.’
‘Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?’
‘Reformed Baptist Church of God.’
‘Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?’
He said: ‘Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915.’
I said: ‘Die, heretic scum,’ and pushed him off. Guardian online article 26th September 2005, ‘Bigot on a bridge wins poll for funniest religious joke’
I was dabbling into every other kind of religion before I became a Christian. I was dabbling in witchcraft. I’ve dabbled in Buddhism. I would have become a Hare Krishna but I didn’t want to become a vegetarian. And that is honestly the reason why – because I’m Italian, I love meatballs! Christine O’Donnell, 19th July 1999
For them that don’t have football there’s always religion. Night Moves 1975 starring Gene Hackman & Susan Clark & Jennifer Warren & Edward Binns & Harris Yulin & Kenneth Mars & Janet Ward & James Woods & Anthony Costello & John Crawford & Melanie Griffith et al, director Arthur Penn, friend
The Romans were tolerant of religion as long as it did nothing to disrupt the stability of the empire. But if you got involved in anything that seemed to threaten the stability of their system, then they could put their foot down and they could put their foot down hard. Byron R McCane, Wofford College