Quotes & Sayings About Religious Satire

I didn't invent satire. I didn't come up with it. And it will continue to be a very powerful tool to disrupt political taboos and social taboos and religious taboos, because those taboos are always used to control and to curb people's way of creativity and thinking, by making them feel guilty because they want to make a change. — Bassem Youssef

Satire has been a sanctuary historically monopolized by progressives, originally used as a discreet tool against Western religious fundamentalism. — Maajid Nawaz

in describing the various writers of his idolatry he more than once lets fall a phrase that could equally apply to himself. 'To read Spenser,' he says, 'is to grow in mental health.' What he values in Addison is his 'open-mindedness.' The moments of despair chronicled in Scott's diary cannot, he claims, counterpoise 'that ease and good temper, that fine masculine cheerfulness' suffused through the best of the Waverly novels. Most of all it was the chiaroscuro of what Chaucer called 'earnest' and 'game' that attracted him. He found it eminently in the poetry of Dunbar, that late-medieval Scottish maker who wrote the greatest religious poetry and the earthiest satire in the language — Jocelyn Gibb

Religion and nationalism? I defecate on the altar of religious conviction, and wipe my arse on the flag of national pride. — Ian Martin

The living and dead were thrown together, and the dead looked away first.

-Description of Doomsday — Stanley Elkin

There can only be one answer to this hideous act of jihad against the staff of Charlie Hebdo. It is the obligation of the Western media and Western leaders, religious and lay, to protect the most basic rights of freedom of expression, whether in satire on any other form. The West must not appease, it must not be silenced. We must send a united message to the terrorists: Your violence cannot destroy our soul. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins. — Isaac Hayes

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. 'Respect for religion' has become a code phrase meaning 'fear of religion.' Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect."

[I Stand With Charlie Hebdo, as We All Must (Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2015)] — Salman Rushdie

The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it's a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.
[Defend the right to be offended (openDemocracy, 7 February 2005)] — Salman Rushdie