Oscar Wilde Quotes

Within orthodoxy, there is always a danger of faith collapsing into fear.

Roman Catholics utter their Papal edicts, Protestants quote their Bible, Fundamentalists declare their orthodox theological dogmas, and we are all expected to renounce private reflection and peacefully acquiesce to these pronouncements. And the result is that the dignity of the person is violated by such oppressive, intelligence-smothering forms of communication.

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

I'm not a follower of this or that religious leader. More wars are started because of religious leaders, and people are following and they don't know why... That is religiosity. That is what turns people into robots.

Then there is the worst part of Christianity, which is awful: power, corruption, manipulation... But then again, these feature are ever present in any organization.

Too many religious organizations are in the business of enforcing beliefs.

If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.

I resent all organised religions.

People who are comfortable with very clear boundaries and group definitions don't like the instability and ambiguity of people who say they are more advanced Christians, or they don't have to do what the bishop says.

Nor bigots who but one way see, through blinkers of authority.

Dawkins considers that all faith is blind faith, and that Christian and Muslim children are brought up to believe unquestioningly. Not even the dim-witted clerics who knocked me about at grammar school thought that.

Where I come from you're not raised to think on your own. It's not that you're pushed to read the Bible. The Bible is read to you.

Our religious belief usurps the place of our sensations, our imaginations of our judgment. We no longer look to actions, trace their consequences, and then deduce the rule; we first make the rule, and then, right or wrong, force the action to square with it.

To arrive at the truth in all things, we ought always to be ready to believe that what seems to us white is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it.

Orthodoxy is a corpse that doesn't know it's dead.

Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you.

Bishops and priests should live according to the canons and should teach others to do likewise

Dogma is less useful than cow dung. One can make whatever one likes out of it …

If religion is about truth, why is it so afraid of error?

Crown and cloth maken no priest, nor emperor's bishop with his words, but power that Christ giveth; and thus by life have been priests known.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

I left the Church of England because there was a huge bundle of straw. The ordination of women was the last straw, but it was only one of many. For years I had been disillusioned by the Church of England's compromising on everything. The Catholic Church doesn't care if something is unpopular.

When certain people have certain beliefs, they can be unyielding, and that's really what faith is. There's a large place in the world for faith, but when it comes to a scientific, political, and economic issue, dogma is not a very good place to start.

I don't like to believe in canon.

People tend not to want to question dogma. But I'm afraid of dogma.