Lynn Coady Quotes

I think there's been a big problem between religion, or organized religion, and spirituality.

God save us from religion.

Religion is all bunk.

I could never take the idea of religion very seriously.

Gods are fragile things, they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.

Every major question in history is a religious question. It has more effect in molding life than nationalism or a common language.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental, mind-shaping, driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.

I'm not Catholic. I don't believe in God. But at the same time, I'm obsessed by the sacred, by spirituality. The question of redemption has been present well before Christianity, but as French people are a bit stupid, they see all that in religious terms.

I just have a sense that, you know, I'm curious about what is religion about, you know? Why do some of us still engage it? It's not because it's a set of old beliefs or old ideas. Or even, particularly, the view that this is the only true religion. Many of us no longer accept those views.

Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.

We all have our beliefs or our agnosticism.

Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.

I'm not really a fan of organized religion.

My first dissatisfaction has always been with religion.

The problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes.

The older I get, the more I realize that religion is not going to be easily marginalized by one of its wannabe successors - science, capitalism, consumerism.

I hate organized religion. I think you have to love thy neighbor as thyself. I think you have to pick your own God and be true to him. I always say 'him' rather than 'her.' Maybe it's because of my generation, but I don't like the idea of a female God. I see God as a benevolent male.

Like, my feelings on religion are starting to morph. I'm still very much an atheist, except that I don't necessarily see religion as being a bad thing. So, that's a weird thing that I'm struggling with that seems to be offending both atheists and people that are religious.

The major obstacle to a religious renewal is the intellectual classes, who are highly influential and tend to view religion as primitive superstition. They believe that science has left atheism as the only respectable intellectual stance.

Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too.

Religion has nothing to do with spirituality.

I do not value religion chiefly for its morality.

I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.