Jeanne Phillips Quotes

I used to be a Catholic. I left because I object to conversion by concussion. If you don't agree with what they teach, you get clobbered over the head until you do. All that does is change the shape of the head.

Religion has certainly been shoved down my throat.

Adherents of almost all religions, as they move away in time from the source, are invariably known to have employed coercion either to keep people within the fold of their religion, or to convert others into their faith.

In Uganda, I am surrounded, unfortunately, by evangelicals; I can't bear it. Every night I hear the chants of Baptists urging people to be born again.

I cannot change others, but I can influence others... we can't change people, but we can and we do influence people, and we do it every single day.

I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.

So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds.

I stopped going to Kingdom Hall, the church, when I was 11 years old, so I was very young. They don't celebrate birthdays, you get no Christmas, so it's a very difficult religion for children to get into. And they do a lot of finger-pointing among the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Without transformation, you can assume you're at a high moral, spiritual level just because you call yourself Lutheran or Methodist or Catholic. I think my great disappointment as a priest has been to see how little actual spiritual curiosity there is in so many people.

You can't change anyone else, but people do change in relationship to your change.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science requires martyrdom - that may be necessary in religion, but in time a scientific result will establish itself.

Anyone with sincere religious beliefs cannot say that all religions are true. That is so illogical it is pathetic. All religion cannot be true because some of them are so diametrically opposed to each other.

The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstition of the Christian religion.

It's unfortunate, you know, that you can't change people's - habits, their personal habits.

People don't change their behavior unless it makes a difference for them to do so.

Our job is not to change people; our job is to connect people to Jesus, and it's Jesus' job to change people.

The abuse of faith has to be resisted precisely.

Christianity isn't the only group that has fundamentalists.

I don't believe there is such a thing as 'moderate Islam.' I think it's better to talk about degrees of belief and degrees of practice.

I have never met a dog I couldn't help; however, I have met humans who weren't willing to change.

I was quite a successful evangelist. I've had people write to me and say, 'Gee, I'm a Christian because of you and I hear you're not a Christian, that's shocking to me.' I don't take these things lightly, but that's who I am. I can't change it.

I have been raised to believe in freedom of thought and speech. If a minority wishes to accept that position [creationism], it's their right. What I fear is that this minority may seem to be larger than it truly is. What is strange is that there are still people who believe the world is not a globe.

The more severe the pain or illness, the more severe will be the necessary changes. These may involve breaking bad habits, or acquiring some new and better ones.