Adherents Religion Quotes & Sayings

Religions and states and classes and tribes and nations do not have to work or argue for their adherents and subjects. They more or less inherit them. Against this unearned patrimony there have always been speakers and writers who embody Einstein's injunction to 'remember your humanity and forget the rest.' It would be immodest to claim membership in this fraternity/sorority, but I hope not to have done anything to outrage it. Despite the idiotic sneer that such principles are 'fashionable,' it is always the ideas of secularism, libertarianism, internationalism, and solidarity that stand in need of reaffirmation. — Christopher Hitchens

Christianity is the religion of melancholy and hypochondria. Islam, on the other hand, promotes apathy, and Judaism instills its adherents with a certain choleric vehemence, the heathen Greeks may well be called happy optimists. — Franz Grillparzer

Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics. — Christopher Lasch

I don't know any religion that promotes violence. It is the adherents of whatever religion. — Desmond Tutu

You should always take a religion at its best and not at its worst, from its highest teachings and not from the lowest practices of some of its adherents. — Annie Besant

This illustrates the working of all false religions. They originate in man's desire to exalt himself above God, but they result in degrading man [287] below the brute. Every religion that wars against the sovereignty of God defrauds man of the glory which was his at the creation, and which is to be restored to him in Christ. Every false religion teaches its adherents to be careless of human needs, sufferings, and rights. The gospel places a high value upon humanity as the purchase of the blood of Christ, and it teaches a tender regard for the wants and woes of man. The Lord says, "I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir." Isaiah 13:12. When — Ellen G. White

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents. — George Orwell

Atheists often denounce Christianity as harsh and negative. But in reality it offers a much more positive view of the human person than any competing religion or worldview. It is so appealing that adherents of other worldviews keep free-loading the parts they like best. — Nancy Pearcey

We should all oppose - as Darwin did - views manifestly in conflict with the evidence, such as creationism ... But we shouldn't set up this debate as 'religion v science'; instead we should strive for peaceful coexistence with at least the less dogmatic strands of mainstream religions, which number many excellent scientists among their adherents. — Martin Rees

Needless to say, food is used to constrain as well as to unify the members of many faiths. Most religions meddle in the day-to-day culinary habits of their adherents. — Michael Krondl

One key and defining attribute of God that does not appear in any other world religion or system is the biblical use of the term "Father." Over 70 times in the New Testament alone, God is described as "Father" to His children. No major world religion describes the relationship between its creator and its adherents in terms of a father. — Ergun Caner

It is an ideology born out of hatred and its adherents belong to no religion, culture or civilisation. — Pratibha Patil

The level of intensity fluctuates according to time and place, but it can be stated as a truth that religion does not, and in the long run cannot, be content with its own marvelous claims and sublime assurances. It must seek to interfere with the lives of nonbelievers, or heretics, or adherents of other faiths. It may speak about the bliss of the next world, but it wants power in this one. — Christopher Hitchens

I don't subscribe to organised religion. I've travelled enough to see that adherents of organised religion often attack adherents of other religions. — William T. Vollmann

The whole message of the Christian scripture is based in the idea of metanoia, the change of heart that happens when we meet God face-to-face. Even a cursory knowledge of history reveals that Christianity is a religion about change. The Christian faith always changes--even when some of its adherents claim that it does not. — Diana Butler Bass

There is no religion in fact that I know that encourages or propagates violence in that its adherents should carry out. — Desmond Tutu

[G]overnment endorsement ... of religion ... sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community. — Sandra Day O'Connor

Christianity is not a religion that offers the solace of revenge to its adherents. For that you must go to the old women who know which herbs to pluck and what charms to say under a waning moon. — Bernard Cornwell

The only differences between a cult and a religion are the numbers of adherents and the degree to which they are marginalized by the rest of society. — Sam Harris

Old Lights include the resurgent fundamentalists in every religion who put a freeze on history and fortify their adherents against the "new dark age" in which they are forced to live. "Back to the Bible," Old Lights shout; "back to the Koran," Old Lights thunder. But not everything Old Lights say is wrong. Much is right. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, the old adage reminds us. — Leonard Sweet

But Lao Tzu's teaching suffers from the major problem endemic to such visionaries. In the intervening two and a half millennia, his words have been misinterpreted and distorted by generations of adherents until his message is riddled with meaningless ritual and dogma. Taoism contracted the conceptual plague: it became a religion. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

I believe the defenders of intelligent design deserve our gratitude for challenging a scientific world view that owes some of the passion displayed by its adherents precisely to the fact that it is thought to liberate us from religion. That world view is ripe for displacement ... — Thomas Nagel

All religion may be centered around a generally good idea, however, this has not stopped its adherents from acting like bastards — Paul Feyerabend

I must add, though, that I don't believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts. — Brian D. McLaren

The supernatural worldview is causing a great number of otherwise intelligent people to cling to a collection of atavistic concepts that have not, and never will serve humanity in any ultimately beneficial way. Any benefits that spirituality ostensibly provides to its adherents, can be found equally in the worldview of philosophy and ethics, communities of other kinds, and so on. It's a myth that the only morality, hope, purpose and comfort to be found, resides only in the supernatural. — Kelli Jae Baeli

If you look at the world's religions and then list them in order, according to each one's number of adherents, it might make for an interesting discussion; but I would argue that the largest denomination in the world will never be listed or even acknowledged. That's because I contend that the largest religion in the world is 'The Gospel According to What I Want to be True. — Van Harden

Georges Sorel, to whom fascism is so much indebted, wrote at the beginning of our century that all great movements are compelled by 'myths.' A myth is the strongest belief held by the group, and its adherents feel themselves to be an army of truth fighting an army of evil. Some years earlier, in 1895, the French psychologist Gustav Le Bon had written of the 'conservatism of crowds' which cling tenaciously to traditional ideas. Hitler took the basic nationalism of the German tradition and the longing for stable personal relationships of olden times, and built upon them as the strongest belief of the group. In the diffusion of the 'myth' Hitler fulfilled what Le Bon had forecast: that 'magical powers' were needed to control the crowd. The Fuhrer himself wrote of the 'magic influence' of mass suggestion and the liturgical aspects of his movement, and its success as a mass religion bore out the truth of this view. — George L. Mosse

First, however, I must deal with the matter of Jesus, the so-called savior, who not long ago taught new doctrines and was thought to be a son of God. This savior, I shall attempt to show, deceived many and caused them to accept a form of belief harmful to the well-being of mankind. Taking its root in the lower classes, the religion continues to spread among the vulgar: nay, one can even say it spreads because of its vulgarity and the illiteracy of its adherents. And while there are a few moderate, reasonable, and intelligent people who interpret its beliefs allegorically, yet it thrives in its purer form among the ignorant. — Celsus

Religion provides the only story that is fundamentally consoling in the face of the worst possible experiences - the death of a parent, for instance. In fact, many religions take away the problem entirely, because their adherents ostensibly believe that they're going to be reunited with everyone they love, and death is an illusion. — Sam Harris

I believe in marriage. I believe that two good people can be happy together for a lifetime. It's the only thing even close to a religion that I have, and I cling to it with almost messianic zeal. But it is a belief system that makes unreasonable demands on its adherents, all of us sacrificing to the bone for a reward that may or may not come at the end of our days; and all of us steadfastly refusing to see the mounting evidence that long-term happy marriages, if they exist at all, are pretty hard to come by. We all want to think that miracles are possible. Otherwise, marriage is just a lot of hard work. — Kate Hilton

The essence of a religion can be discovered by asking its adherents one question: 'What, to your mind, was the seminal moment in the history of the world?' — Meir Soloveichik

Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good. — Philip Pullman