Quotes & Sayings About How Ridiculous Religion Is

The problem is that most people, most of the time, are desperate to believe ridiculous and divisive ideas for patently emotional reasons,and while rarely explicit what they're really worried about is death — Sam Harris

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous. — David Hume

Religion is still the very best way to get someone to accept something unabashedly ridiculous. — Gene Doucette

Life and the Universe show spontaneity;Down with ridiculous notions of Deity!Churches and creeds are lost in the mists;Truth must be sought with the Positivists. — Mortimer Collins

The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive. — Sam Harris

An atheist is but a mad, ridiculous derider of piety, but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action. — Alexander Pope

Religions are all founded on miracles - on things we cannot understand, such as the Trinity. Jesus calls himself the Son of God, and yet is descended from David. I prefer the religion of Mahomet - it is less ridiculous than ours. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Politicians will promise some pretty ridiculous things. They will promise a chicken in every pot. They'll promise that they'll keep Social Security solvent. They'll promise drugs for old people. They'll promise lots of stuff. But it doesn't come near the kind of promises that religion makes. The Mormons promise that if you're good while you're on Earth, you get to rule over your own planet in the afterlife. Now, there's an entitlement that goes a little bit beyond prescription drugs for old people. — Bill Maher

There is no need to "believe" in Jupiter or Wotan - something that is no more ridiculous then believing in Yahweh however - to be pagan. Contemporary paganism does not consist of erecting altars to Apollo or reviving the worship of Odin. Instead it implies looking behind religion and, according to a now classic itinerary, seeking for the "mental equipment" that produced it, the inner world it reflects, and how the world it depicts as apprehended. In short, it consists of viewing the gods as "centers of value" and the beliefs they generate as value systems: gods and beliefs may pass away, but the values remain. — Alain De Benoist

Many men without morals have attacked religion because it was contrary to their inclinations. Many wise men have despised it because it seemed to them ridiculous. Many persons have regarded it with indifference, because they have never felt its true disadvantages. But it is as a citizen that I attack it, because it seems to me harmful to the happiness of the state, hostile to the march of the mind of man, and contrary to sound morality, from which the interests of state policy can never be separated. — Baron D'Holbach

Tis true, that We are here a mix'd People--of different Countries Dialects, and Denominations. But how ridiculous it is, to carry any Nationality Prejudice, or Bias about Us in these Respects. We ought to leave them all behind Us in the Ocean and consider ourselves as one Great family--pursue one General Interest and banish all Selfishness, Bigotry--Narrow Spiritedness, and Atachments, whether it arises from Motives of Religion, Custom--or Habit--for these are Great follies, and very wide of the Christian Temper. — Charles Woodmason

In a way, the futile excuses many people use to cover their superstitions are demolished. They think it is enough to have some sort of religious fervor, however ridiculous, not realizing that true religion must be according to God's will as the perfect measure; that He can never deny Himself and is no mere spirit form to be changed around according to individual preference. — John Calvin

Chimerical and empty being, your name alone has caused more blood to flow on the face of the earth than any political war ever will. Return to the nothingness from which the mad hope and ridiculous fright of men dared call you forth to their misfortune. You only appeared as a torment for the human race. What crimes would have been spared the world, if they had choked the first imbecile who thought of speaking of you. — Marquis De Sade

We pass a church with a massive blue neon cross, and I am spiritually lifted by feelings of great religiosity. No, I'm not, for crying out loud. Don't be ridiculous. But what I do love about this road is how the gaudy becomes grand, how tastelessness is a way of everyday life. You have to admire how these people shamelessly try to get your attention as you drive by, whether they're trying to feed you a hamburger or a savior. (p.37) — Michael Zadoorian

I wasn't making fun of my father in-law's religion. And even if I was so what, it's a comedy. Religion should be made fun of, it's quite ridiculous isn't it. Think how people spend their lives, they have no idea. They go around as if this is a fact. It's so insane you know. If I really believed that stuff I'd keep it to myself. Lest somebody think I was out of my mind. — Larry David

[Religious belief is] outmoded and ridiculous. [Belief in gods was a] worn out but once useful crutch in mankind's journey towards truth. We consider the time has come for that crutch to be abandoned.
It is a vacuous answer ... To say that 'God made the world' is simply a more or less sophisticated way of saying that we don't understand how the universe originated. A god, in so far as it is anything, is an admission of ignorance.
Religion utterly failed to provide an explanation of the biosphere other than that 'God made it all'. Then Darwin thundered over the horizon and in a few decades of observation and thought ... arrived at an answer.
I regard teaching religion as purveying lies. I came here today to de-corrupt you all. — Peter Atkins

We shouldn't even need the word 'atheism'. If people didn't invent ridiculous imaginary gods, rational people wouldn't have to deny them. — Ricky Gervais

The tyrant-father of Heaven, the one who created, hated and drove out the first woman, yoked men with a horrible curse, far worse than any imagined to have been handed down to Eve. Men were told they were masters of this world, of their mates, of the beasts and fish, of the land and sea and sky. How ridiculous! That's like telling a little boy he's in charge of the house when his da is gone. It's silly!
And like that little boy, men have tried to live up to the unreasonable demands of their mute, wayward, celestial father. They have enslaved and dominated, conquered and killed, all in the name of shepherding, of protecting, of ruling the world. They spend their lives trying to do what they think is right, what their father on high would want of them. The bastard. — R.S. Belcher

A civil ruler dabbling in religion is as reprehensible as a clergyman dabbling in politics. Both render themselves odious as well as ridiculous. — James Gibbons

Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.
[In a letter to Frederick the Great] — Voltaire

Never underestimate the ridiculous things that have been done in the name of religious-semantic obscurity. — Kate Griffin

Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. — C.S. Lewis

Yes, we have to seek redemption! Redemption from the divisive politics based on caste and religion, redemption from the corruption which is eating our lives like termites, redemption from misery of poverty, redemption from the sins of our venal politicians. We need good governance and accountability. An individual has to fight for the things he rightfully deserves. People do not need crutches of any kind if the basic conditions of nation are conducive to their growth. It's ridiculous; people are first deprived of basic amenities, denied their dues and then offered carrots to benefit the vote bank politics. — Madhu Vajpayee

Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man wants to make a million dollars, the the best way would be to start his own religion. — L. Ron Hubbard

If I told you to wish for good health, you would think I'm ridiculous; but when I exchange the word "wish" for the word "pray", you believe it can work. That is the disempowering delusion religions have brought us. — Steve Maraboli

Ours [religion] is without a doubt the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and the most bloody to ever infect the world. — Voltaire

And in these four things, opinion of ghosts , ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear , and taking of things casual for prognostics , consisteth the natural seed of religion ; which by reason of the different fancies, judgments and passions of several men, has grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are used by one man, are for the most part ridiculous to another. — Thomas Hobbes

To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.
It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended. The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression — Rowan Atkinson

Credulity is always ridiculous. — Frances Wright

Every brand of religion maintains, and is, a permanent mechanism for transmitting ideas and values - whether one regards those values as admirable or ridiculous. Secularist organizations, with their generally looser, nonhierarchical structures, lack the power to hand down and disseminate their heritage in such a systematic way. — Susan Jacoby

When one sees what happens in the world between the religions, the different religions - killing each other and murdering each other, it's disgusting and as far as I am concerned it's ridiculous. So I thought I might be useful, I believe in God and I believe in religion, but believe religions should belong to you. The extraordinary thing is that the Jews believe that only the Jews can go to paradise, the Christians believe that only a Christian can go to paradise and the Muslims believe that only the Muslims can go to paradise. Now why should God, in his great justice, make somebody born that cannot go to paradise - it is absurd. Please forgive me I don't mean to say it's absurd, people made it absurd. — Omar Sharif

As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinly scattered in those books [the Bible], they make no part of this pretended thing, revealed religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience, and the bonds by which society is held together, and without which it cannot exist; and are nearly the same in all religions, and in all societies. The Testament teaches nothing new upon this subject, and where it attempts to exceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous. When it is said, as in the Testament, 'If a man smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also,' it is assassinating the dignity of forbearance, and sinking man into a spaniel. — Thomas Paine

The Fathers of the Republic, I believe, were far cleverer fellows than they are commonly represented to be, even in the schoolbooks. If it was not divine inspiration that moved them, then they must have drunk better liquor than is now obtainable on earth. For when they made religion a free-for-all, they prepared the way for making it ridiculous; and when they opened the doors of office to the mob, they disposed forever of the delusion that government is a solemn and noble thing, by wisdom out of altruism. — H.L. Mencken

Just because science so far has failed to explain something, such as consciousness, to say it follows that the facile, pathetic explanations which religion has produced somehow by default must win the argument is really quite ridiculous. — Richard Dawkins

[I]f the basic claims of religion are true, the scientific worldview is so blinkered and susceptible to supernatural modification as to be rendered nearly ridiculous; if the basic claims of religion are false, most people are profoundly confused about the nature of reality, confounded by irrational hopes and fears, and tending to waste precious time and attention
often with tragic results. Is this really a dichotomy about which science can claim to be neutral? — Sam Harris

The Bible is not absurd for the people who wrote it; it becomes absurd when people in our day insist on taking it literally. The Bible does not present us with material that is ridiculous in the context from which it came. The Bible springs from the context in which people then were thinking, searching, and trying to find answers . — Robert Alley

The dead, Your Honor, do not agonize over their crimes and do not long to be happy, as you know. If from time to time we hear the opposite, then those are just trivial religious and poetical exaggerations and ridiculous rumors, which have nothing to do with the real circumstances of the simple dead. — Hassan Blasim

If the universe is teeming with life other than ours, then this, we are told, makes it quite ridiculous to believe that God should be so concerned with the human race as to 'come down from Heaven' and be made man for its redemption. If, on the other hand, our planet is really unique in harbouring organic life, then this is thought to prove that life is only an accidental by-product in the universe and so again to disprove our religion. We — C.S. Lewis

Well, while you were in the bathroom, I sat down at this picnic table here in Bumblefug, Kentucky, and noticed that someone had carved that GOD HATES FAG, which, aside from being a grammatical nightmare, is absolutely ridiculous. So I'm changing it to 'God Hates Baguettes.' It's tough to disagree with that. Everybody hates baguettes. — John Green

Religion is the subjective experience. Science is the objective reality. To argue either is a ridiculous waste of time and energy. — Steve Maraboli

I respect you as a person too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs. — Johann Hari

You think of me that way because you look at me and at what I do through the lens of your mundane understanding of the world. Mundane humans create distinctions between themselves, distinctions that seem ridiculous to any Shadowhunter. Their distinctions are based on race, religion, nation identity, any of a dozen more irrelevant markers, To mundanes they seem logical, for though mundanes connote see, understand, or acknowledge the demon worlds, still somewhere found buried in their ancient memories, they know that there are those that walk this earth and are other. That do not belong, that mean only harm and destruction. Since the demon threat is invisible to mundanes, they must assign the threat to others of their own kind. They place the face of their enemy onto the face of their neighbor, and thus are generations of misery assured. — Cassandra Clare