Quotes & Sayings About United Religion

In this age, there is no substitute for Christianity. That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants. The great, vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure, doctrines and divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. — United States House Judiciary Committee Of Congress 1854

It's nothing but a big stroke job in this country. The government strokes you every day of your life. Religion never stops stroking you. Big business gives you a good stroke. And it's one big, transcontinental, cross-country, red, white and blue stroke job ... Do you know what the national emblem for this country ought to be? Forget that bald eagle. The national emblem of this country ought to be Uncle Sam standing naked at attention saluting, and seated on a chair next to him, the Statue of Liberty jerking him off. That would be a good symbol for the United Strokes of America. — George Carlin

Religion united its influence with those of loyalty and love, and the order of knighthood, endowed with all the sanctity and religious awe that attended the priesthood, became an object of ambition to the greatest sovereigns. — Thomas Bulfinch

Everyone in the United States is so intense about maintaining a separation between Church and State when the real concern should be about keeping a separation between Corporations and State
because in America (and most of the rest of the Western World, for that matter) economics is the real religion. — Neale Donald Walsch

Since 1787 the principle of freedom of religion has been attacked but never overthrown. Keeping education in the United States free of sectarian influence has long been one of the primary struggles of believers in freedom of religion. — Joseph Leon Blau

Religion waited for man to evolve. It waited an eternity like a desolate lover awaiting its unborn soulmate. When man was able to accept religion it captured his heart and enslaved his mind. The supreme delusion united with the supreme host. — C.J. Anderson

There are indeed millions of Christians in the United States, but most Americans who think that they are Christians truly are something else, intensely religious but devout in the American Religion, a faith that is old among us, and that comes in many guises and disguises, and that overdetermines much of our national life. — Harold Bloom

Help us, oh God, to remember that we are Americans. United not by race or religion or by blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all. When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us. — Rick Warren

Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history. — James Madison

The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion. — George Washington

The constitution of most of the states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press. — Thomas Jefferson

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

In the Zelda universe, we see what might be called a refined polytheism of three goddesses. It is polytheistic because there are three distinct deities here, unlike the great monotheistic religions, and it is refined because it seems that these three goddesses are always in harmony with one another, having intentions that are both united and aimed at the good. — Jonathan L. Walls

I do not believe any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States. — Thomas A. Edison

There is absolutely nothing in the Mormon's religion inconsistent with the most patriotic devotion to the government of the United States. Revelation and the commandments of the church require that the Constitution and the laws of the land be upheld. It is also part of our belief that the time will come when the country will be distracted and general lawlessness prevail. Then the Mormon people will step forward and take an active part in rescuing the nation from ruin. — Wilford Woodruff

My fellow Americans: Last night when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that the troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far. And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join me in prayer:
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization ... — Franklin D. Roosevelt

In the blood-heat of pursuing the enemy, many people are forgetting what we are fighting for. We are fighting for our hard-won liberty and freedom; for our Constitution and the due processes of our laws; and for the right to differ in ideas, religion and politics. I am convinced that in your zeal to fight against our enemies, you, too, have forgotten what you are fighting for. — Julia Child

Let me speak plainly: The United States of America is and must remain a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. Our very unity has been strengthened by this pluralism. That's how we began; this is how we must always be. The ideals of our country leave no room whatsoever for intolerance, anti-Semitism, or bigotry of any kind
none. The unique thing about America is a wall in our Constitution separating church and state. It guarantees there will never be a state religion in this land, but at the same time it makes sure that every single American is free to choose and practice his or her religious beliefs or to choose no religion at all. Their rights shall not be questioned or violated by the state.
Remarks at the International Convention of B'nai B'rith, 6 September 1984 — Ronald Reagan

We are all born to love people and use things. Unfortunately, we grow to love things and use people ... — T. Rafael Cimino

Today's Quote of the Day is an excerpt from 'The Religion of God (Divine Love)' by His Divine Eminence RA Gohar Shahi

'Had all humanity called upon God by one name, all would have been united inwardly despite different religions. — Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi

It is notorious that the news of the Emancipation Proclamation was kept from the people of Texas and not celebrated until 'Juneteenth'. There may be those in Texas now who believe they can insulate their state - a state that had its own courageous revolution - from the news of evolution and from the writing in 1786 of a Constitution that refuses to mention religion except when demarcating and limiting its role in the public square. But we promise them today that they will join their fore-runners in the flat-earth community, and in the mad clerical clique of those who believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Yes, they will be in schoolbooks - as a joke on the epic scale of William Jennings Bryan. We shall be fair, and take care to ensure that their tale is told. — Christopher Hitchens

Across all religions in the United States, people 18-30 are more spiritual than before, but they don't like organized religion. What sets Birthright apart is that no one's hitting on you to be Jewish in any particular way, and you can define Jewish any way you want. — Charles Bronfman

To gather with God's people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer. — Martin Luther

It is the wall of separation between church and state ... that is largely responsible for religion thriving in this country, as compared to those European countries in which church and state have been united, resulting in opposition to the church by those who disapprove of the government. — Alan Dershowitz

This determined bias against religion, especially Christianity, is clearly evident when viewed against the religious heritage of American culture as revealed in the Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 452. 1892. — Mathew Staver

You see, women have been essential to every great move of God. Yes, Moses led the Isaelites out of Egypt, but only after his mother risked her life to save him! Closer to our time, Clara Barton was instrumental in starting the Red Cross. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin put fire into people's heart to end slavery in the United States. Rosa Parks kicked the Civil Rights movement into gear with her quiet act of courage. Eunice Kennedy Shriver created the Special Olympics. Mother Teresa inspired the world by bringing love to countless thought unlovable. And millions of other women quietly change the world every day by bringing the love of God to those around them. — Stasi Eldredge

If religion and science could be united on the common ground of biological conservation, the problem would be soon solved. If there is any moral precept shared by people of all beliefs, it is that we owe ourselves and future generations a beautiful, rich, and healthful environment. — E. O. Wilson

If you chose a particular religion, you were siding with the government religion of whatever region you were in. That's never been true in America, but also, the United States also has so many more immigrant groups which also tends to imply more religious diversity right away. — Susan Jacoby

The fact that you are here tonight gathered together with us testifies to the fact you understand the need for this organization and the need for redoubling our efforts in this organization to try to assure that democracy as represented by the United States must depend upon a total freedom of religion, which is written into our Constitution, of course, and the mere suggestion that anyone could maintain that one's patriotism, one's devotion to one's country can be judged by one's religion is so vile, so vile that we have to take to the streets indeed and to put it aside. — Walter Cronkite

Obama has compiled a record of hostility to religion that is unmatched by any other president in American history. Author David Barton calls Obama "America's most Biblically-hostile U.S. president." As commander in chief of the United States military, the office in which he enjoys unquestioned authority, he has been particularly aggressive in curbing religious expression. The military employs a high concentration of people who believe in God and Country - a formulation that Obama wants to replace with an allegiance to the State and its Progressive Social Engineering. — Phyllis Schlafly

No matter what we may think and say of Germany, by singular paradox the race-religion which Germany has suddenly thrust to the front, is but an interpretation of what America and Europe have practiced against the colored peoples of the world. No matter who wins this war it is going to end with the question of the equal humanity of black, brown, yellow and white people, thrust firmly to the front. Is this a world where its peoples in mutual helpfulness and mutual respect can live and work; or will it be a world in the future as in the past, where white Europe and white America must rule "niggers"? The problem of the reconstruction of the United States, 1876, is the problem of the reconstruction of the world in 1943. — W.E.B. Du Bois

When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual. — Frank Herbert

The United States furnishes the first example in history of a government deliberately depriving itself of all legislative control of religion. — Philip Schaff

The Christian Constitutional Society, its object is first: The support of the Christian religion. Second: The support of the United States. — Alexander Hamilton

Our planet for Superhumans.

Let us change the name of our planet as Divine Home,
Let us compel the higher consciousness to descend upon our divine home, Let us change the United Nations to United Humans. When the self ignorance, ego and immaturity is removed from mankind, politics and religion will no more exist,
When politics is removed, borders won't be required, When the religion is removed, hatred, misbelief and mass ignorance will not exist, god as dual wont exist.
Let us live on the 29% earth as one Home, the divine home.
Welcome Superhumans". — Vishal Chipkar

By 1998, members of the United States National Academy of Sciences, an elite elected group sponsored by the federal government, were approaching complete atheism. Only 10 percent testified to a belief in either God or immortality. Among them were a scant 2 percent of the biologists. In modern civilizations, there is no overwhelming importance in the general populace to belong to an organized religion. Witness, — Edward O. Wilson

I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in any religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the States. — Thomas Jefferson

The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjuration of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security. — Haile Selassie

Many point to the rising percentage of younger adult "nones" in the United States as evidence for the inevitable shrinkage of religion. However, Kaufmann shows that almost all of the new religiously unaffiliated come not from conservative religious groups but from more liberal ones. Secularization, he writes, "mainly erodes . . . the taken-for-granted, moderate faiths that trade on being mainstream and established."67 Therefore, the very "liberal, moderate" forms of religion that most secular people think are the most likely to survive will not. Conservative religious bodies, by contrast, have a very high retention rate of their children, and they convert more than they lose.68 — Timothy J. Keller

Religion is for those individuals trying to avoid going to hell. Spirituality is for those of us who have been there. — United Methodish Church Bulletin

The Arab rulers are basically unpopular. They are supported by the United States against the wishes of their people. In all of this rather heady mixture of violence and policies that are remarkably unpopular right down to the last iota, it's not hard for demagogues, especially people who claim to speak in the name of religion, in this case Islam, to raise a crusade against the United States and say that we must somehow bring America down. — Edward Said

The United States of America ... has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Muslims. — John Adams

It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind. — Christopher Hitchens

It was no coincidence that the biblical defense of slavery remained strongest in the United States, a place where democratic, antitraditional, and individualistic religion was also strongest. — Mark A. Noll

Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country. — Alexis De Tocqueville

In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Visiting America in the early nineteenth century, Alexis de Tocqueville observd that 'the sects that exist in the United States are innumerable,' and yet 'all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God.' Tocqueville termed religion the first of America's political institutions, which means that it had a profoundly public effect in regulating morality and mores throughout the society. And he saw Christianity as countering the powerful human instincts of selfishness and ambition by holding out an ideal of charity and devotion to the welfare of others. — Dinesh D'Souza

I like the relaxed way in which the Japanese approach religion. I think of myself as basically a moral person, but I'm definitely not religious, and I'm very tired of the preachiness and obsession with other people's behavior characteristic of many religious people in the United States. As far as I could tell, there's nothing preachy about Buddhism. I was in a lot of temples, and I still don't know what Buddhists believe, except that at one point Kunio said 'If you do bad things, you will be reborn as an ox.'
This makes as much sense to me as anything I ever heard from, for example, the Reverend Pat Robertson. — Dave Barry

Balanced atop the highest spire of the Salt Lake Temple, gleaming in the Utah sun, a statue of the angel Moroni stands watch over downtown Salt Lake City with his golden trumpet raised. This massive granite edifice is the spiritual and temporal nexus of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), which presents itself as the world's only true religion. Temple Square is to Mormons what the Vatican is to Catholics, or the Kaaba in Mecca is to Muslims. At last count there were more than eleven million Saints the world over, and Mormonism is the fastest-growing faith in the Western Hemisphere. At present in the United States there are more Mormons than Presbyterians or Episcopalians. On the planet as a whole, there are now more Mormons than Jews. Mormonism is considered in some sober academic circles to be well on its way to becoming a major world religion
the first such faith to emerge since Islam. — Jon Krakauer

Every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents. — Thomas Jefferson

Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse. — Norman G. Finkelstein

As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. I might possibly invent some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it. As for the religion and love of art of the builders, it is much the same the world over, whether the building be an Egyptian temple or the United States Bank. It costs more than it comes to ... For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them
who were above such trifling. — Henry David Thoreau

The Society of Muslim Brothers was founded in 1928 by a young schoolteacher named Hasan al-Banna. As a Sunni Islamic revivalist movement, its establishment followed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the subsequent end of the caliphate system of government that had united the Muslims for many hundreds of years. Al-Banna, who was just twenty-two years old, believed Islam was not only a religion but a fully comprehensive way of life, based on the tenets of Wahhabism, a strict and repressive form of the religion better known these days as Islamism and espoused by the Saudis, as well as unsavory characters such as Osama bin Laden. — Dan Eaton

Very few Black people ever embraced back to Africa movements, and very few actually, a tiny number actually went back to Africa. They said, "We are going to make America live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States." They produced one of the world's great cultures; they produced individuals who were just as brilliant and made contributions to the world civilization. In fact, they produced a world-class civilization, the African American civilization, in music, in dance, in oratory, in religion, in writing. — Henry Louis Gates

The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy. — George Washington

The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities, of citizens of the United States; and, in the mean time, they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess. — Thomas Jefferson

The United States, knowing no distinction of her own citizens on account of religion or nationality, naturally believes in a civilization the world over which will secure the same universal laws. — Ulysses S. Grant

The catch is that for most people the New Testament is taken as proof for the conventional picture of Christian origins, and the conventional picture is taken as proof for the way in which the New Testament was written. . . . For this reason the New Testament is commonly viewed and treated as a charter document that came into being much like the Constitution of the United States. According to this view, the authors of the New Testament were all present at the historic beginnings of the new religion and collectively wrote their gospels and letters for the purpose of founding the Christian church that Jesus came to inaugurate. Unfortunately for this view, that is not the way it happened. — Burton L. Mack

Divided as we may be by religion, we are united by charity. — Rashi

Politics and religion in the United States work like the twin grips of a pair of pliers on a critical mass of the masses. — Roseanne Barr

I fully support President Bush's decision to strike Al Qaeda's terrorist network. Now more than ever, we must stand united as a nation and support our President and our military. It is important to remember that this carefully targeted response is not an attack on a religion, nor a nation, but an attack on terrorism. In Congress, we will continue to work with the White House to do what's needed to bring justice to those who committed the heinous and evil attacks of September 11. — Tom Harkin

The United States is no more a Christian nation because most of its citizens are Christians than it is a 'white' nation because most of its citizens are white. We are Americans because we practice democracy and believe in republican government, not because we practice revealed religion and believe in Bible-based government. — John Stuart Mill

The worst form of inequality, is the inequality of ideals A people united by the same ideal, irrespective of religion, social status, race, political preference or sexual, would have the strength to fight for a fairer country. — Marcela Re Ribeiro

To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself — James Madison

If the United Nations wants to do something to be remembered forever, I guess that would be freeing people from insanity of religion. — M.F. Moonzajer

Other sovereign democratic states have central governments more corrupted other than our own, but most can fall back on unifying elements we lack: common ethnicity, a shared religion, or near-universal consensus on many fundamental political issues. The United States needs its central government to function cleanly, openly, and efficiently because it's one of the few things binding us together. — Colin Woodard

Of all the Islamic organizations in America, CAIR has risen to the top as the most visible, most outspoken defender of Muslims in the United States. Masquerading as a civil rights organization, CAIR has had a hidden agenda to Islamize America from the start. Its cofounder and chairman, Omar Ahmad, a Palestinian American, told a Muslim audience in Fremont, California, in 1998: 'Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.' Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR's national spokesman, is on record stating: 'I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic.' Three of CAIR's officials have already been convicted of terror-related crimes. One even worked for Hooper. He's now in prison for conspiring to kill Americans. — Brigitte Gabriel

Before the rise of the nation-state, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the world was mostly tribal. Tribes were united by language, religion, blood, and belief. They feared other tribes and often warred against them. — Robert Reich

No power over the freedom of religion [is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution. — James Madison

But when thou findest sensibility of heart, joined with softness of manners, an accomplished mind, and religion, united with sweetness of temper, modest deportment, and a love of domestic life; such is the woman who will divide the sorrows and double the joys of thy life. Take her to thyself; she is worthy to be thy nearest friend, thy companion, the wife of thy bosom. — Noah Webster

If the Old Testament were a reliable guide in the matter of capital punishment, half the people in the United States would have to be killed tomorrow. — Steve Allen

I found out that many subjects were taboo from the white man's point of view. Among the topics they did not like to discuss with Negros were the following: American white women; the Ku Klux Klan; France, and how Negro soldiers fared while there; French women; Jack Johnson; the entire northern part of the United States; the Civil War; Abraham Lincoln; U.S. Grant; General Sherman; Catholics; the Pope; Jews; the Republican Party; slavery; social equality; Communism; Socialism; the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution; or any topic calling for positive knowledge or manly self-assertion on the Part of the Negro. The most accepted topics were sex and religion. — Richard Wright

When, in 2012, Newt Gingrich was asked about how his religious beliefs would affect his conduct should he become president, the Republican nominee hopeful answered, "One of the reasons I am running is there has been an increasingly aggressive war against religion and in particular against Christianity" in the United States. For a potential president to state that he sees himself as a wartime candidate who will defend his party against other citizens is astonishing. There is not even a pretense here of "united states". — Candida R. Moss

We believe in honesty, morality, and purity; but when they enact tyrannical laws, forbidding us the free exercise of our religion, we cannot submit. God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven, we will be ranged under the banner of heaven and against the Government ... Polygamy is a divine institution. It has been banded down direct from God. The United States cannot abolish it. No nation on the earth can prevent it, nor all the nations of the earth combined ... I defy the United States; I will obey God. — John Taylor

This case is not about whether marriages between same-sex couples are consistent or inconsistent with the teachings of a particular religion, whether such marriages are moral or immoral or whether they are something that should be encouraged or discouraged ... Quite simply, this case is about liberty and equality, the two cornerstones of the rights protected by the United States Constitution. — Barbara Brandriff Crabb

Regardless of whether or not you belong to a majority religion, in the United States you may not impose your theology on civil law. — Lori Lipman Brown

It was during my study in Israel that I came to the realization that most of what I had learned in my courses in religion in the United States was outdated or in error. In order to understand what the biblical position is on any subject and, particularly on the subject of sex, one has to do it from a Hebrew perspective. — Roy B. Blizzard

In the United States it's not important which religion you adhere to, as long as you have one. — Susan Sontag

Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the unforgettable Marquis de Lafayette, there would have been no French proclamation of The Rights of Man. Without his brilliant negotiation of the Louisiana treaty, there would be no United States of America. Without Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, there would have been no Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, and no basis for the most precious clause of our most prized element of our imperishable Bill of Rights - the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. — Christopher Hitchens

Politics in the United States consists of the struggle between those whose change has been arrested by success or failure, on one side, and those who are still engaged in changing themselves, on the other. Agitators of arrested metamorphosis versus agitators of continued metamorphosis. The former have the advantage of numbers (since most people accept themselves as successes or failures quite early), the latter of vitality and visibility (since self-transformation, though it begins from within, with ideology, religion, drugs, tends to express itself publicly through costume and jargon). — Harold Rosenberg

The Earthlings did very well on paper. That was part of the rigging, of course. And religion got mixed up in it, too. The news ticker reminded them that the President of the United States had declared National Prayer Week, and that everybody should pray. The Earthlings had had a bad week on the market before that. They had lost a small fortune in olive oil futures. So they gave praying a whirl. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The fact the enemies of God must face is that modern civilization has conquered the world, but in doing so has lost its soul. And in losing its soul it will lose the very world it gained. Even our own so-called Liberal culture in these United States which has tried to avoid complete secularization by leaving little zones of individual freedom is in danger of forgetting that these zones were preserved only because religion was in their soul. And as religion fades so will freedom, for only where the spirit of God is, is there liberty. — Fulton J. Sheen

No, now the domestic market is full up with other planters' troublesome slaves. Our only salvation is to scientifically breed a stable order of docile Negro. I've come up with three tenets: Isolation. Religion. Family...." Master Ben — Jonathan Odell

We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind. To do so effectively, the world needs a global ethic with values which give meaning to life experiences and, more than religious institutions and dogmas, sustain the non-material dimension of humanity. Mankind's universal values of love, compassion, solidarity, caring and tolerance should form the basis for this global ethic which should permeate culture, politics, trade, religion and philosophy. It should also permeate the extended family of the United Nations. — Wangari Maathai

Our Constitution's separation of church and state never meant that religion could have nothing to do with the governing of our nation. The Founders simply intended that the United States would not have an established state religion and that no one could be sanctioned by the state for being of the wrong faith. Separation of church and state does not mean, as many people inside government believe today, that religion can never be discussed when investigating a threat or interrogating a suspect. And it definitely does not mean that a subject under surveillance as a threat to American lives cannot be recorded or otherwise monitored when he steps into a mosque. If someone is suspected of being a terrorist, it matters not whether he steps into a mosque, a church, or a temple; he is still a threat and should be treated as such. — Sebastian Gorka

At family gatherings in the United States, two off-limit subjects are almost always put together in the same phrase: no religion or politics. While in Colombia, the former was embraced ("What do you mean you aren't Catholic?") but the latter was taboo. While it may be the only reason that Colombia (or Columbia) makes the international news outside of prostitution or scandals, Colombia's political problems, drug trade, and civil conflicts are forbidden subjects for most Colombians. — Bryanna Plog

The United States of America is logically the least magical place in the world. Planned by committee, not even a country, just a legal umbrella for fifty associated provinces, an elaborate polling system for creating other larger and more permanent committees. No mysteries; no demons; one God at the most. Sure, it had its own folklore and tall tales, but it wasn't the same. Its rulers weren't descended from men and women who spoke with birds and rode dragons. Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan were hayseeds, folksy also-rans compared to the madness in the ancient royal blood going back to the Druids, to Byzantium, to Mithraic cults. — Austin Grossman

Atheists are the fastest-growing religious subgroup in all fifty states. There are more atheists in this country than there are Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists combined and doubled. ["Unbelievable! Atheists to Rally in Record Numbers", Forbes, 21 March 2012] — David Silverman

Although I was too tactful to ask about politics or religion, I learned that she was socially and economically progressive. She believed in birth control, gun control, and rent control; she believed in the liberation of homosexuals and civil rights for all; she believed in Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Thich Nhat Hanh; she believed in nonviolence, world peace, and yoga; she believed in the revolutionary potential of disco and the United Nations of nightclubs; she believed in national self-determination for the Third World as well as liberal democracy and regulated capitalism, which was, she said, to believe that the invisible hand of the market should wear the kid glove of socialism. Her — Viet Thanh Nguyen

unity. Evangelicals, by definition, don't care about "unity" nearly as much as they care about truth. When you say "We may differ on some issues of morality and theology, but the important thing is that we stay together in one united Church" you pre-suppose that the liberals are right and the evangelicals are wrong. Which, when you think about it, isn't very liberal at all. — Andrew Rilstone

The more we listen to the voices of others, voices unlike our own, the more we remain open to the transcendent forces that save us from idolatry. The more we listen to ourselves, the more we create God in our own image until God becomes a tawdry idol that looks and speaks like us. The power of the commandments is found not in the writings of theologians, although I read and admire some, but in the pathos of human life, including lives that are very unlike our own. All states and nations work to pervert religions into civic religions, ones where the goals of the state become the goals of the divine. This is increasingly true in the United States. But once we believe we understand the will of God and can act as agents of God we become dangerous, a menace to others and a menace to ourselves. We forget that we do not understand. We forget to listen. — Chris Hedges

In the long term, the United States could greatly benefit Islam by uniquely freeing the religion from government constraints and permitting it to evolve in a positive, modern direction. But that's the long term. — Daniel Pipes

I am not ashamed to be a Christian, and I am glad to know that the President of the United States is a Christian, for without the help of the Almighty I do not think he could rightly judge in ruling so many people. I have advised all of my people who are not Christians, to study that religion, because it seems to me the best religion in enabling one to live right. — Geronimo

The United States Constitutional Convention, except for three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary. — Benjamin Franklin

John Adams, second president of the United States, wrote that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people ... George Washington warned us never to indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. — Joe Lieberman

Sikhism was then, as Muhammadanism
in the seventh and eighth centuries, and
Wahabeeism in the present, a religion of the sword, and the new converts appeared as ready to fight with each other as with the common enemy against whom
alone they ever united. — Lepel Henry Griffin

Because of the hegemony of fundamentalist religion in the United States, this country has been among the most resistant to the fact of human evolution. — Jerry A. Coyne

Faith belongs to the human spirit. Faith is faith. Humanity is divided by religion, religion is the divider of humanity. If every human could be removed of their blindfolds and see that faith is in itself faith and that this is something which belongs to each and every human being, then at that time the dividers of religion will suddenly mean nothing and we will all see that we are united by faith in and of itself. There is only one faith and it is called faith. And no man needs to prove to another man that what he believes in exists, because even if it does not exist, his faith is his belief that it is there, that something is there, and that in itself is faith. So I do not need to prove to any man that what I believe in exists or not, there is no such contest between man, my faith breathes in the body of my belief; the fact that I believe is the breath of my faith. — C. JoyBell C.

A world without God to give people faith that all their suffering is not meaningless is a nightmare. A world without religion means a world without any systematic way of ennobling people. A world without countries is a world without the United States of America, and it is a world governed by the amoral United Nations, where mass murderers sit on "human rights" councils. A world without heaven or hell is a world without any ultimate justice, where torturers and their victims have identical fates. A world without possessions is a world in which some enormous state possesses everything, and the individual is reduced to the status of a well-fed serf. Liberals frequently criticize conservatives for fearing change. What we fear is transforming that which is already good. The moral record of humanity does not fill us with optimism about "fundamentally transforming" something as rare as America. Evil is normal. America is not. — Dennis Prager

In 1980 we declared the globe free of smallpox. It was the largest campaign in United Nations history until the Iraq war. A hundred and fifty thousand people from all over the world, doctors of every race, religion, culture and nation, who fought side by side, brothers and sisters, with each other, not against each other, in a common cause to make the world better. — Larry Brilliant