Quotes about Religion

There was something called Christianity.

In so far as it helps the individual to forget himself and his ready-made opinions about the universe, religion will prepare the way for realization. In so far as it arouses and justifies such passions as fear, scrupulosity, righteous indignation, institutional patriotism and crusading hate, in so far as it harps on the saving virtues of certain theological notions, certain hallowed arrangements of words, religion is an obstacle in the way of realization.

Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears - that's what soma is.

When captured and brought to trial, many of those who had taken part in the Sabbath resolutely refused, even under torture, even at the stake, to abjure the religion which had brought them so much happiness.

But the power problem has its roots in anatomy and biochemistry and temperament. Power has to be curbed on the legal and political levels; that's obvious. But it's also obvious that there must be prevention on the individual level. On the level of instinct and emotion, on the level of the glands and the viscera, the muscles and the blood. If I can ever find the time, I'd like to write a little book on human physiology in relation to ethics, religion, politics and law.

Turning to God without turning from self' - the formula is absurdly simple; and yet, simple as it is, it explains all the follies and iniquities committed in the name of religion.

Why don't you give them these books about God? For the same reason as we don't give them Othello; they're old, they're about God hundreds of years ago. Not about God now. But God doesn't change. Men do though.

The philosophy that rationalizes power politics and justifies war and military training is always (whatever the official religion of the politicians and war makers) some wildly unrealistic doctrine of national, racial or ideological idolatry, having, as its inevitable corollaries, the notions of Herrenvolk and "the lesser breeds without the Law.

But God doesn't change.' 'Men do though.

Christianity has remained a religion in which the pure Perennial Philosophy has been overlaid, now more, now less, by an idolatrous preoccupation with events and things in time—events and things regarded not merely as useful means, but as ends, intrinsically sacred and indeed divine.

For the same reason as we don't give them Othello: they're old; they're about God hundreds of years ago. Not about God now.' 'But God doesn't change.' 'Men do, though.' 'What difference does that make?' 'All the difference in the world

W]hen Christianity is mainly preoccupied with events in time, it is a 'revolutionary religion,' and [...] when, under mystical influences, it stresses the Eternal Gospel, of which the historical or pseudo-historical facts recorded in Scripture are but symbols, it becomes politically 'static' and 'reactionary.