A. J. Jacobs Quotes

I'm an elder in a Presbyterian church. I've taken Scripture seriously. I really do believe, like my more religious colleagues, that religion should be a source of values. If you believe that, for God's sake, act on those values.

My understanding of God has come from my own personal experiences. Because I was in trouble so many times in New York that if you were me, you would believe in God too.

I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.

Give your life to Christ, he'll challenge you.

This Christianity is not a cultural thing. It is not something that should be just a small part of your life; it is not something that you do on Sunday... Christianity is not about you being just like the world all the time and then coming to church on Sunday. If that is your Christianity... you are not Christian.

Becoming a Christian is the work of a moment; being a Christian is the work of a lifetime.

A religion that comes of thought, and study, and deliberate conviction, sticks best. The revivalized convert who is scared in the direction of heaven because he sees hell yawn suddenly behind him, not only regains confidence when his scare is over, but is ashamed of himself for being scared, and often becomes more hopelessly and malignantly wicked than he was before.

By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves.

I promised that from now on I would write only for the Lord.

I figured if I told it to myself often enough, I would start believing it.

One comes to believe whatever one repeats to oneself sufficiently often, whether the statement be true or false.

Many friends have expressed concern that a religious fanatic will try to kill me when I go to Africa. After all, I’ll be speaking out against a crime many fundamentalists consider a holy practice. I’m sure my work will be dangerous, and I admit to being scared…. But my faith tells me to be strong, that God led me down this path for a reason. He has work for me to do. This is my mission. And I believe that long before the day I was born, God chose the day I will die, so I can’t change that. In the meantime, I might as well take a chance, because that’s what I’ve done all my life.

If you can impress any man with an absorbing conviction of the supreme importance of some moral or religious doctrine; if you can make him believe that those who reject that doctrine are doomed to eternal perdition; if you then give that man power, and by means of his ignorance blind him to the ulterior consequences of his own act,-he will infallibly persecute those who deny his doctrine.

Never for a moment have I had one doubt about my religious beliefs. There are people who believe only so far as they can understand--that seems to me presumptuous and sets their understanding as the standard of the universe.

Proofs are the last thing looked for by a truly religious mind which feels the imaginary fitness of its faith.

The problem I want to talk to you about tonight is the problem of belief. What does it mean to believe? We use this word all the time, and I think behind it lurk some really extraordinary taboos and confusions. What I want to argue tonight is that how we talk about belief- how we fail to criticize or criticize the beliefs of others, has more importance to us personally, more consequence to us personally and to civilization than perhaps anything else that is in our power to influence.

For what a man would like to be true, that he more readily believes.

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be.

I now consider myself quite religious and spiritual although that sounds like a terrible cliche.

In the past few months I've become religious, I've started to believe in god, creationism and intelligent design, and the reason that I now believe in god and creationism and intelligent design is because of Professor Richard Dawkins. Because when I look at something as complex and intricate and beautiful as Professor Richard Dawkins, I don't think that just could've evolved by chance! Professor Richard Dawkins was put there by god to test us, like fossils. And facts.

I want to make people think, and I don't want to come across like I am egotistical or that I want to change people's thoughts. I don't believe that as a comic I can convert anyone's opinion. I think I can maybe make someone look in one direction or the other but I can't make a religious person stop believing in God.

It is easy to be religious when religion is in fashion; but it is an evidence of strong faith and resolution to swim against a stream to heaven, and to appear for God when no one else appears for Him.

Even if you don't believe in God, you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.

I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing.