Stephen Colbert Quotes

I'm a real simple person. I believe that the Bible means what it says, and says what it means.

The Bible states it. It must be so.

The Bible has been through millions of rounds of exegesis and interpretation, but it hasn't been until quite recently that it's been taken as the absolute truth, to the point where people expect it to inform ideas about biology and life on this planet.

No apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.

We read the whole Bible, cover to cover, over and over again... It wasn't that we read selective parts of the Bible. It was that we interpreted it in this very selective way.

When the word of God says one thing and scholarship says another, scholarship can go to hell.

Yeah, I have been because, generally speaking, to we Biblical literalists, the media is very hostile.

When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.

Once you believe that God is speaking directly to you, there is no discussion.

Extremists often derive their inspiration from literal interpretations of texts that should rightly be read not as Associated Press reports from the ancient world, but as theological and literary enterprises requiring independent intellectual assessment.

Fundamentalism does mean reading quite conservatively and literally, saying 'the Bible is the word of God and we have to follow it. What it says is this.'

Within the Christian tradition, fundamentalism arose in the 19th century as an effort to push back against modern' readings of the Bible that suggested everything in the text wasn't true in some literal sense.

To get overprotective about particular readings of the Bible is always in danger of idolatry.

The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.

If we think every word in every holy book is true, then we have created an idol.

Scrutamini scripturas [Latin for “Let us look at the scriptures.”). These two words have undone the world.

We must allow the Bible to say what is says, not what we think it ought to say.

Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love.

In the name of religion many great and fine deeds have been performed. In the name of religion also, thousands and millions have been killed, and every possible crime has been committed.

The only way we can determine the true age of the earth is for God to tell us what it is. And since He has told us, very plainly, in the Holy Scriptures that it is several thousand years in age, and no more, that ought to settle all basic questions of terrestrial chronology.

What chiefly concerns and alarms many of us are the problems arising from religious fanaticism. As long as large numbers of militant enthusiasts are persuaded that they alone have access to the truth, and that the rest of us are infidels, we remain under threat. Lord Acton's famous phrase about power can be used of another danger. Dogma tends to corrupt, and absolute dogma corrupts absolutely.

Instead of making Christianity a vehicle of truth, you make truth only a horse for Christianity.

Religion is a completely different thing from the claim that the Earth is six thousand years old. That's just crazy.

Fundamentalist religion is the most pervasive vision of central planning, though many fundamentalists may oppose human central planning as a usurpation or "playing God.This is consistent with the fundamentalist vision of an unconstrained God and a highly constrained man.

Judaism is not just one more religion, but in its way the root of religious evil