Walter Savage Landor Quotes

It's not so much religion per se, it's false certainty that worries me, and religion just has more than its fair share of false certainty or dogmatism. I'm really concerned when I see people pretending to know things they clearly cannot know.

The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.

It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different.

Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do.

The story of the decadence of the cathedral as a moral power, a spiritual energizer in civilization, is the sad but inevitable story of dogmatism. It is the story of the struggle of free thought with bigotry, religion making common cause with the wrong side.

Self-righteousness has killed more people than smoking.

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

The sin of certainty leaves no room for the rest of us.

No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth".

Religion has played a big part in eliminating the nuance in humanity. People began to believe things before they knew them. It stopped people from listening and learning with the patience and love of the God they believe in.

The enemy of science is not religion. Religion comes in endless shapes and forms... The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.

In religious and in secular affairs, the more fervent beliefs attract followers. If you are a moderate in any respect - if you're a moderate on abortion, if you're a moderate on gun control, or if you're a moderate in your religious faith - it doesn't evolve into a crusade where you're either right or wrong, good or bad, with us or against us.

The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.

I think religion is a mistake - I'm exhausted by its self-righteousness. I think atheists should start screaming for attention like religious folks do.

A quest for knowledge is not a war with faith; spirituality is not usually an infelicitous amalgam of superstition and philistinism; and moral relativism, taken outside midfield, leads inexorably both to heresy and to secular wickedness, which are often identical.

Your mom was right when she told you never to discuss politics and religion because emotions run so high in those arenas. Especially religion.

The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it, is the root of all evil in the world.

You're always going to have extremists in every religion.

Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.

Nor bigots who but one way see, through blinkers of authority.

Intolerance is a form of egotism, and to condemn egotism intolerantly is to share it.

Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

The most learned are often the most narrow-minded men.