40 quotes about religion that may offend the feelings of believers.

Quotes about religion (100 quotes)

Religion is a certain system of beliefs, determined by belief in the supernatural, organized worship of higher powers. Religion not only represents faith in the existence of higher powers, but establishes a special relationship with these forces: it is, a certain activity of the will directed towards these forces. In this section of our site you will find quotes about religion.

The more often a person mentions God in his speeches, the more diligently I watch my wallet. Mark Twain

We Englishmen are particularly timid in all matters relating to religion. Addison Joseph

There is no God in my theory, because I did not need this hypothesis. Pierre Laplace

The heroic solution, in my opinion, is for the priest, having gathered his parishioners, to go out to the pulpit and, instead of serving and bowing to the icons, bow to the ground to the people, asking their forgiveness for misleading them. Lev N. Tolstoy

Blind faith has very evil eyes. Stanislav Jerzy Lec

Humanity needs faith." Of course, but not your faith at all. After all, we, non-believers, believe, but in the exact opposite of what you, believers, believe. Ludwig A. von Feuerbach

Words of faith are often repeated, not because they are true, but because they are often repeated. Oscar Wilde

The priests soon noticed that while they worked for the gods they worked for themselves, that they could freely lay their hands on gifts, vows and sacrifices made to beings who had never made claims to these things. Holbach Paul Henri

Religious beliefs are a great excuse to do nasty things to people. Richard Aldington

The secret of salvation is for those who wish, not for those who are forced. Gregory the Theologian

Church is a place where gentlemen who have never been to heaven tell tales about it to those who will never go there. Henry Mencken

The definition of ethics seems to me like this. That which sustains and continues life is good; that which damages and disrupts life is bad. Deep and universal ethics has the meaning of religion. She is religion. Albert Schweitzer

Faith is something that lies on one side of the scale, while reason always lies on the other. Arthur Schopenhauer

If people are not ruled by God, then they will be ruled by tyrants. William Penn

You can explain to a Martian the existence of gas stations. But it will be very difficult to explain to him why all these churches are needed. John Updike

We have as many religions as we need to hate each other. Jonathan Swift

By teaching religion in schools, these church bastards, to put it mildly, want to lure the souls of children. Vitaly Ginzburg

Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the desire for truth and understanding. But the source of this feeling originates from the field of religion. From there comes the belief in the possibility that the rules of this world are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot imagine a real scientist without a strong belief in this. The situation can be described figuratively as follows: science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind. Albert Einstein

What magnificent fools religion makes of people! Ben Jonson

Here they are, the thick thighs of this obscene wall. Here at night the nuns take off Christ's pants. Sergey A. Yesenin

There is too little love and goodness in the world to be lavished on imaginary beings. Friedrich Nietzsche

Man on earth is a worker assigned to the task of saving his soul. Lev N. Tolstoy

I suppose I would have been a good Christian, but the church did everything to turn me into a complete atheist. Friedrich Schiller

Next to our vile life there is another life: solemn, indestructible, immutable: the life of the Church. The same words, the same movements - everything as centuries ago. Outside of time, that is, outside of treason. We remember too little about this. Marina I. Tsvetaeva

Civilization will not reach perfection until the stone of the last church falls on the head of the last priest. Emile Zola

In prayer, it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. Mahatma Gandhi

The absence of God is difficult to prove. If I suggest that there is a porcelain teapot orbiting around the Sun between Earth and Mars, no one can disprove it, especially if I carefully add that it is so small that even the most powerful telescopes cannot see it. Bertrand Russell

What deep confidence in the rational structure of the world and what a thirst for knowledge of even the smallest reflections of rationality manifested in this world must have been possessed by Kepler and Newton. People of this type draw strength from a cosmic religious feeling. One of our contemporaries said, and not without reason, that in our materialistic age only deeply religious people can be serious scientists. Albert Einstein

God is a plug for the hole of the unknown. Anatoly Lunacharsky

Religions, like chameleons, take on the color of the soil in which they live. Anatole France

The Christian concept is disgusting. It makes of God either embodied anger, and, moreover, infinite anger, which created thinking beings in order to make them forever unhappy, or embodied impotence and feeble-mindedness, unable to either predict or prevent the misfortunes of its creatures. Francois Voltaire

Ethical behavior should be based on sympathy for people, education and social connections; a religious basis is not needed at all. Albert Einstein

The blood shed by the worshipers of the God of mercy and peace since the introduction of His religion would perhaps be sufficient to drown the adherents of all other sects living on the globe. Percy Shelley

Do the clergy believe in God? It does not understand this issue because it serves God. Vasily O. Klyuchevsky

Reason is the main enemy of all faith. Martin Luther

All religions have based morality on obedience, that is, on voluntary slavery. Alexander I. Herzen

Religion has always seemed indecent to me. Ingmar Bergman

All people have a moral sense, a categorical imperative. Since this feeling does not always motivate a person to actions that bring him earthly benefit, therefore, there must be some basis, some motivation for moral behavior that lies outside this world. All this necessarily requires the existence of immortality, a higher court and God. I. Kant

If God exists, then atheism is certainly less offensive to him than religion. Jules Goncourt

Unique value today is universal value tomorrow. This is how religions are created and values ​​are created. V.Frankl

Thank God I'm an atheist! Luis Buñuel

Faith is knowledge of the meaning of human life, as a result of which a person does not destroy himself, but lives. Faith is the power of life. If a person lives, then he believes in something. If he did not believe that one must live for something, then he would not live. L. N. Tolstoy

I am sure that a serious scientist studying the laws of nature or human society will not be able to maintain faith, because everything around him will dissuade him from the dogmas he has learned from childhood. Umberto Eco

Two things constantly fill the soul with new and growing surprise and awe, and the more often and more attentively one ponders them: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me. Both, as if covered with darkness or an abyss, located outside my horizon, I should not explore, but only assume; I see them before me and directly connect them with the consciousness of my existence. I. Kant

All thinking people are atheists. Ernest Hemingway

Believe in yourself and live like this, straining all your strength towards one thing: to manifest God in yourself, and you will do everything that you can do for your own good and for the good of the whole world. L. N. Tolstoy

Piety finds justifications for bad actions that a simple decent person would not find. Charles Montesquieu

The purpose, and the only purpose, of our life is to eradicate passions and replace them with opposite virtues. Barsanuphius of Optina

No religion can do anything for humanity. Stanislav Lem

The idea that man is created in the image of God leads not only to the idea of ​​the equality of God and man, or even to the idea of ​​independence from God; From it follows the conviction central to humanism that in every person lies all of humanity. E. Fromm

If you look at the ratio of all living beings in the world, it turns out that most of all the Lord loves microbes and insects. Conrad Lauren

A person has a hole in his soul the size of God, and everyone fills it as best they can. J.-P. Sartre

Prayer is a demand to change all the laws of the Universe for the sake of one, clearly unworthy, petitioner. Ambrose Bierce

Nature is known through itself, and not through any other thing. It consists of infinite attributes, each of which is infinite and perfect in its kind; existence belongs to its essence, so that outside of it there is no longer any essence or being, and it exactly coincides with the essence of the only majestic and glorified God. B. Spinoza

Religion is regarded by ordinary people as truth, by smart people as a lie, and by the government as a useful thing. Edward Gibbon

Man cannot avoid the labor and anxiety of spiritual struggle, because this is the dignity and godlikeness of a human being. S. L. Frank

You shouldn't believe in something just because it would be terrible if it didn't exist. Jean Rostand

The goal of psychotherapy is the healing of the soul, while the goal of religion is the salvation of the soul Frankl V.

Religiosity is simply one of the by-products of our behavior as a species. Quite harmful, it should be noted. Ernst Mayr

When it comes to an existential vacuum or a holistic orientation, a general attitude or a central motivational state, the priest is the specialist, and the scientist is still just an incompetent amateur. G. Allport

It's amazing how all these priests and soothsayers, looking at each other, can refrain from laughing. Cicero

Looking around at people, at all of humanity, I saw that people live and claim that they know the meaning of life. I looked back at myself: I lived as long as I knew the meaning of life. Faith gave both other people and me the meaning of life and the possibility of life. L. N. Tolstoy

The people positively demand that they be deceived, otherwise it is impossible to deal with them. Synesius

Rational knowledge in the person of scientists and wise people denies the meaning of life, but huge masses of people, all of humanity, recognize this meaning in irrational knowledge. And this irrational knowledge is faith. Tolstoy L. N.

Calling believers donkeys is unfair, because donkeys are never so stubborn. Luis Velez de Guevara

When the world began to exist, reason became its mother, and He who realizes that the basis of his life is spirit knows that he is beyond all danger. When he closes his mouth and closes the gates of the senses at the end of his life, he will not experience any anxiety. Lao Tzu

He who has science does not need religion. Johann Goethe

Don't be afraid of this disagreement; on the contrary, know that in this disagreement between you and everyone around you, the best that is in you was expressed - that divine principle, the manifestation of which in life is not only the main, but the only meaning of our existence. L. N. Tolstoy

I have never tried to find God, thinking that if He is as smart as he is described, he will be able to find me himself. Isaac Asimov

There is no complete freedom, but a person approaches freedom as he unites his mind and love with God. L. N. Tolstoy

Lord, give me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, give me the courage to change what I can change. And give me the wisdom to distinguish one from the other. Friedrich Christoph Etinger

A true existentialist is necessarily a religious person, conscious of his “purpose”, whatever it may be, for a life directed by faith in the necessity of action is a life built on the recognition that the main motivating factor of existence is a search whose goals are full of meaning , albeit mysterious; it is impossible to lead such a life unless the emotions that drive it are guided by deep conviction. N. Mailer

It always amazes me that people are capable of fighting over a sip of water, when with their combined efforts they could take possession of the entire source. I. A. Ilyin

We do not give you, O Adam, either a specific place, or your own image, or a special duty, so that you have a place, a person and a duty of your own free will, according to your will and your decision. G.Pico della Mirandola

Stalin and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval discussed how many divisions each side could field against Germany. Laval then asked “to do something to encourage religion and Catholics in Russia. This would help me so much in dealing with dad.” "Wow! - Stalin exclaimed. - Dad! How many divisions does he have? Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Apostle Paul

Many people try to live the lives of other people. Their thoughts are other people's opinions, their lives are mimicry, their passion is quotes. The ability to quote well hides the lack of your own ideas.

The ontological interpretation of human existence as being-in-the-world makes neither a positive nor a negative decision regarding the possibility of being with God. However, thanks to the clarification of transcendence, a sufficient concept of being-here (Dasein) is obtained for the first time, on the basis of which it is now possible to pose the question of how things stand in the ontological sense with the relation of being-here to God. M. Heidegger

If seeds could talk, they would complain about how painful it is for them to grow.” Eduard Douwes Dekker

The sacred, which is still only the essential space of divinity, which again still only preserves the dimension for the gods and for God, will rise in its luminosity only when, in its long preparation, being itself is enlightened and perceived in its truth. Only in this way, from being, will the overcoming of homelessness begin, in which not only people wander, but the very being of man. M. Heidegger

Neither morality nor religion come into contact with any point of reality in Christianity.

God revealed his will to an insignificant speck of dust - man! The book in which this great and all-holy will is set forth is in your hands. You can accept or reject the will of your Creator and Savior, depending on how you please. Your eternal life and eternal death are in your hands: judge how much you need to be careful and prudent. Don't play with your eternal fate! I. Brianchaninov

Religion is the self-awareness and well-being of a person who either has not yet found himself or has already lost himself again. Karl Marx

Existence is a question revealed in the face of transcendence. A. Matseyna

Hell must be a cool place, since the little ones who invented religion wanted so much that no one but them would go there. Al Capone

The Judeo-Christian religious tradition provided the Western world with a comprehensive framework of meaning based on the principle that the world and human life are part of a divinely ordained plan. The meaning in the life of an individual being is divinely predetermined; the task of each person is to understand and fulfill God’s will. I. Yalom

Every person has such an angel, how a person feels his happiness. Ekaterina Sivanova

For religious existence, nature is not reduced to “just nature” or to a source of physical energy and useful resources. The universe is imbued with a religious message and is sanctified by the Presence of meaning. In the religious way of being, things and objects always mean something more than they appear at first glance. In every phenomenon of the world, the unspoken appears, that which transcends (goes beyond the boundaries) of nature.

Religion is a disease of the soul that only a psychiatrist can cure. Benito Mussolini

The modern existential crisis is, ultimately, a religious crisis: it is the awareness that ... existence is a closed world, leading to nausea and despair. Some psychologists focus on the aspect of boredom or nausea, others on underlying anxiety, others on the loss of individuality and mechanization that leads to the neurosis of meaninglessness. But, in essence, we are dealing with the second “fall” of man, for whom it turned out to be impossible to live all aspects of his life religiously.

A person's youth is inseparable from his mother. She is a part of your being, your innermost essence - even today... without her you would be someone else. Rudolf Hess

You can’t depend on God only while you’re young and prosperous; You won’t live your whole life independent. O. Huxley

Never before has any religion, either directly or indirectly, dogmatically or allegorically, contained the truth. For every religion was born out of fear and need and invaded life through the delusions of reason. Friedrich Nietzsche

By knowing himself, a person knows his divine essence and recognizes it wherever he wants to see it. H. A. Livraga

Just as in dark times people are best guided by religion, so in pitch darkness the best guide is the blind... When dawn comes, it is simply stupid to follow the blind. Heinrich Heine

Deep within the soul there is a desire that leads a person from the visible to the invisible, to philosophy, to the divine. K. Gibran

Religion and sexuality should not be mixed. This is not in Buddhism and Islam, so why is it allowed in Christianity? Katy Perry

The essence of any faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death. L. N. Tolstoy

Religion is a universal human obsessive neurosis. Sigmund Freud

If they ask me why there is no religion in my heart, then I will answer that I lost it through the fault of religion itself. F. Schiller

I believe that the real religion is the Good Heart. Dalai Lama XIV

Religion gives a person an ideal. Man needs an ideal, but a human one, corresponding to nature, and not a supernatural one. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Religion: Pros and Cons

Give us a road map of the global crisis!

At the few requests of workers, I am posting my road map of the current global crisis.
At the same time, I immediately frankly admit that I rely on the experience of the history of modern science. This science, invented in the 16th and 17th centuries (more precisely, “physics”, and even more precisely, “exact natural science”), embodied in technology, became the main engine of world history. And only science provides examples of objective truth about the real world, independent of cultural ideas. I'll start with the basic facts of the historical and cultural landscape of humanity. I will call civilization a cultural community one level below humanity. In our time, four main civilizations coexist - European, Indian, Islamic and Chinese, the main difference of which lies in the most general ideas about man in the world around him - in “anthropostulates”. The fifth, or more precisely, zero, civilization includes people living all over the world, whose “folk”, i.e. pagan, similarly heterogeneous ideas were inherited from the ancient tribal way of life as a primitive infantile background.

Each of the anthropopostulates historically arose as part of the religious picture of existence, but was established only thanks to the corresponding (gifted, invented, found) mechanism of socio-cultural heredity. The sustainable viability of civilizations is proven by their centuries-long existence.

The youngest of the current civilizations - European - was formed at the beginning of the New Age, uniting various Euro-cultures, thanks to the rise of the social role of the Bible as a Common Sacred Text (due to the invention of printing and the Reformation). Only in this civilization, which should be called Biblical, did the birth of modern science and technology based on it become possible. The main reason is the biblical anthropopostulate, constitutionally enshrined at the end of the 18th century in the form of a “self-evident truth”: people are born equal in the inalienable right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness, and the main task of society is to ensure this right.

The potential for equality and freedom was realized, in particular, in Scientific and technological progress, which ensured a sharp increase in average life expectancy and population, and also made geographical distances between civilizations unimportant for contacts of various kinds. This led to the current crisis, the cause of which is the contact of significant parts of civilizations with incommensurable (or even incompatible) ideas about man.

I will roughly outline the anthropopostulates of three “eastern” civilizations.

Indian: super-individualism of a person who is able to free himself from the suffering of the illusory-material world only by finding in himself a universal essence, common to all people and to Brahman - the impersonal absolute, the fundamental principle of all things. And on the way to this sacred goal, reincarnations occur “according to the law of karma.”

Chinese: super-collectivism of a self-consistent “human anthill”, the well-being of which, like the well-being of each individual “ant”, is determined by compliance with the rules established by Heaven for everyone from the emperor to the peasant, as well as for the entire material world.

Islamic: super-obedience to Allah and his governors on earth is rewarded with posthumous joys, easily imaginable by carnal man.

The biblical worldview combines the free will of a godlike person and his service to the Creator, respect for the individual and the social order. The development of this worldview in modern times led to the secularization of the anthropopostulate based on the idea of ​​inalienable human rights, starting with freedom of conscience. Within Biblical civilization, respect for spiritual freedom spread first to various versions of Protestantism, then to other denominations and to atheists.

In 1948, the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first internationally recognized document of its kind. It was supported by 48 countries out of the then 58 UN members; The countries of the “socialist camp” abstained because they did not recognize the right to freely leave the country, and Saudi Arabia because of non-recognition of freedom of religion and voluntary marriage. On the basis of this declaration, in 1966 the UN developed legally binding International Covenants on Human Rights (adopted by 168 countries, and of those that did not join, the largest are Burma, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia). Thus, the Biblical anthropopostulate became the basis for the unification of all civilizations into humanity.

Reason to think about the possibility of unification is given by the fact that the (hyperbolic) growth of the world population has changed since the 1970s, it has been slowing down and stabilization of numbers is predicted, and therefore, perhaps, some equilibrium state.

Biblical theism, as well as biblical atheism (based on the biblical anthropopostulate without its theistic justification), as is clear from the previous one, are quite ready for peaceful coexistence with the Chinese and Indian worldviews. And I can imagine how they will find a place for a Biblical worldview next to them. For example, the Chinese idea, expanded into a harmonious global anthill, could create a special innovation department for ants around the world with a heightened level of invention in their blood, and their inventions would be mastered and applied in other parts of the anthill.

I cannot, however, imagine how the Islamic worldview - IN ITS CURRENT BASIC STATE - can coexist peacefully with the other three. Hope is inspired only, on the one hand, by the historical lesson of the Golden Age of Islam, when for five centuries (until the 13th century) the world of Islam was ahead of the rest in terms of flourishing cultural life and religious tolerance. On the other hand, the “Quranic humanism” of Tawfik Ibrahim, a Syrian by birth, Muscovite and Mekhmatian by education, an Islamic philosopher who foresees and preaches the Reformation of Islam, inspires hope. (My simple unsolicited advice is to include in the Islamic scripture those parts of the Bible that are explicitly and implicitly mentioned in the Qur'an and Sunnah.)

The most important thing, however, for those who consider themselves to be part of the Euro-civilization is to take care of its spiritual health, for which, in my opinion, it is necessary to understand the role of the Biblical worldview in the most important world achievements - in science, technology, legal and political culture. This requires much greater attention to the spiritual and cultural history of European civilization, to careful study and veneration of its religious roots, regardless of the religious orientation of each person, freely chosen within and outside of Biblical theism.

Atheist V.L. Ginzburg said about this:

“Acquaintance with religion is necessary for every cultured person, in particular, acquaintance with the Bible, since the religious worldview dominated for a long time, and without knowledge of all this one cannot be a cultured person. The school should have a special course on the history of world religions. The school should prepare an educated person - whether he is a mathematician or an artist, he still must know the elements of mathematics. He must know the structure of matter, how the world works, and so on. In the same way, he must know history, in particular the history of religion.”

Examples[edit]

Folklore[edit]

• The image of a clergyman, be he a priest, a priest, a mullah, a rabbi or a bonze, in many folk (and not only) stories represents the standard of greed and stupidity.

Literature[edit]

In many countries[edit]

• Particularly notable were the works of the Enlightenment (for example, the anti-clerical pamphlets of Paul Holbach), and then many published in socialist countries. Look at Ostap Bender’s rhetoric addressed to priests!
• Leo Taxil, “The Holy Family”, also had a blast with his criticism of the Catholic clergy. At the same time, in his annealing, which is typical, he had a fairly good command of historical material.

Russian speaking[edit]

• Representatives of socialist realism greatly respected this trope and, before the collapse of the USSR or even earlier, managed to squeeze all the juice out of it. Most of these creations are now deservedly forgotten, but some - truly talented works that our mothers and fathers read, and in other cases we continue to read - retain the power of their influence to this day. It’s simply surprising that no one thought to ban them for extremism and insulting the feelings of believers. The author of the edit would like to note the works of Leonid Zharikov “The Tale of a Harsh Friend” and especially “The Fate of Ilyusha Barabanov”. In “The Fate of Ilyusha...” the corresponding characters - the sexton and deacon of the Kaluga Church of St. Basil the Blessed - were initially described only with irony, as comical careless shepherds who, after the service, lose their polished pathos and, like mere mortals, drink moonshine, smoke shag and cut themselves in cards. Against their background, the rector of the church was described almost with sympathy, as the only normal person among this brethren. However, later, when the churchmen refused to obey the decree on the confiscation of church valuables to save the starving people from the Volga region, they, according to the writer, crossed the moral horizon of events. And from that moment on, the trope began to play in all colors on the pages of the book.