I definitely want Brooklyn to be christened, but I don’t know into what religion yet. David Beckham
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is the temple; the philosophy is kindness. Dalai Lama
Why are we so afraid to let go of the antiquated belief systems by which we were raised? What if our great, great, great, great and then some grandparents were wrong? What if those who viewed lighting as God’s wrath were mistaken? What if their primitive interpretations were wrong? Moreover, what harm could come in at least exploring the tools of science as a means to fortify ourselves, as a means to minimize life’s pain and maximize our happiness?
So, which will it be? Are we to accept the underlying principles conceived in scientific method – reason – or are we to obstinately hold on to those antiquated belief systems that spring from our pre-scientific, ignorant past?
… Besides, if there truly is no spiritual reality, just think of all the energy we’ve wasted in practicing our illusionary beliefs. Think of all the useless rituals and ceremonies we’ve performed, all of the sacrifices we’ve made, the shrines we’re built, the purses we’ve filled, the gods to whom we’ve worshipped and prayed and, meanwhile all of it in vain. Matthew Alper, The God Part of the Brain
Abstinence Makes The Church Grow Fondlers. T-shirts and bumper stickers
Too stupid to understand science? Try religion. T-shirts and bumper stickers
The Nazi belief in these ancestors was to form the foundation of Germany’s new religion. A religion with Adolf Hitler as its High Priest. Inspiring Hitler’s evil crusades was a belief that pure Aryan blood was being contaminated by so-called inferior races ... To prove their superiority the Nazis would leave no myth or religion unexplored. In effect borrowing from any belief that could adapt to the Aryan cause. As a foundation for this new faith Hitler needed to eliminate competing religions. Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy, Discovery 1998
The blood-flag was the crucifix of Hitler’s religion. It would come to symbolise his new reign. In 1933 Hitler succeeded in becoming the Fuhrer. The leader. A title that would come to resonate with religious connotations of the Anointed One. The Messiah. Adolf Hitler’s time has come. ibid.
Science flies to the moon; religion flies into buildings. Spongebobbluvr82, board post
In stark contrast the Ottomans’ progress was severely hampered by religion. In the words of one Muslim cleric: ‘It is rare that someone becomes absorbed in this foreign science without renouncing religion and letting go the reigns of piety within him.’ Niall Ferguson, Civilisation: Is the West History? Channel 4 2011
Muslim scientists could not even access the latest research from Europe. Because their religion now prevented them from reading printed books. For the Ottomans script was sacred. ibid.
In Ottoman schools science yielded to narrowly religious study. ibid.
Unlike religion, science can change its views if the evidence demands it. That’s the power of science. Richard Blakesmore, Christianity: A History: God and the Scientists, Channel 4 2009
I believe that science will increasingly make religion redundant. And will eventually provide us with an understanding not only of creation but also of ourselves. ibid.
These people suffer from one of the strangest of all brain disorders. It makes them think they have been touched by God. But their unusual condition is giving scientists an unusual insight into faith and the human mind ... Could it be that the physical make-up of our brain programs us to believe in God? Horizon: God on the Brain, BBC 2003
Professor Gregory Holmes, one of the world’s leading experts in paediatric neurology, believes the fact that Ellen White’s visions followed a head injury is no coincidence. ibid.
St Paul is a case in point. He famously encountered God who appeared to him in a blinding flash. And what about Moses, the bringer of the Ten Commandments? He believed he heard the voice of God speak to him from a burning bush. ibid.
Professor Ramachandran of the University of California decided to pursue the link between the temporal lobes of the brain and religious experiences. ibid.
Scientists now believe what happens inside the mind of temporal lobe epileptic patients may just be an extreme case of what goes on inside all our brains. For everyone it now appears that temporal lobes are key in experiencing religious and spiritual belief. This explosive research studying how religious faith affects the brain is the inspiration for a completely new field of science: neuro-theology. ibid.
Dr Persinger has taken his research a stage further. He believes naturally occurring electromagnetic fields might also be capable of generating this sensed presence. This explains, he argued, not just our sense of God but perhaps also other supernatural experiences too. ibid.
So Horizon decided to set Dr Persinger’s theory and machine the ultimate test. To give a religious experience to one of the world’s most strident atheists, Professor Richard Dawkins. ibid.
Despite the setback with Professor Dawkins, Dr Persinger’s research shone over a thousand human guinea-pigs has gone further than any other to establish a clear link between spiritual or religious experience and the temporal lobes of the human brain. It has put his research at the very cutting-edge of neuro-theology. ibid.
Could it be we somehow evolved religious belief as a survival mechanism? But if religious faith is somehow a by-product of evolution, does that mean belief in a God can be dismissed as a quirk of Nature? ibid.
For some reason our brains have developed specific structures that help us believe in God. Remarkably it seems, whether God exists or not, the way our brains have developed we will go on believing. ibid.
In 1973 Horizon looked at a scientific study of religious believers. Many of the people involved believed that God revealed Himself to them directly. Horizon: The End of God? A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion, BBC 2010
In 2006 Horizon looked at what can happen when Science and the Bible conflict. ibid.
Whatever the reality, even the most hardened critics agree our brains mean God is here is stay. ibid.
The Natural History Museum in Oxford was packed with nearly a thousand spectators. Making the case for Evolution was a young biologist called Thomas Huxley known as Darwin’s bulldog. He was one of a new generation who thought Religion should play no part in the business of Science. Standing against the Theory of Evolution was the Bishop of Oxford, Thomas Wilberforce. ibid.
Behind Galileo’s downfall were two questions that are central to the whole story of Science and Religion: Who owns knowledge and what makes one source of knowledge more reliable than another? ibid.
There is a practically universal demand for a causal story ... You require a causal link and you attach to that an incredible superstructure of cultural and religious thought. David Aaronovitch, The Big Questions: Is There Any Evidence for God? BBC 2012
So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, The World’s Need
You see, Christians use Hell as a way to scare people into believing what they believe. But to believe in something just because you’re afraid of the consequences of not believing in something is no reason to believe in something. South Park
How lucky was I: I was born in the right religion, in the right family, in the right religion, in the right time in history, because the world’s ending any minute ... One of these days, someone is going to be right. Dan Barker, Freedom from Religion Foundation lecture 2001, ‘Losing Faith in Faith’
We may define ‘faith’ as a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of ‘faith’. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups substitute different emotions. Bertrand Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954
If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. Bertrand Russell