Emile Durkheim Quotes

Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.

I'm not a member of any faith community, and I think faith is a deeply personal issue that individuals should deal with in their private lives.

If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well - better, in many ways, than devout ones.

In thinking about religion and society in the 21st century, we should broaden the conversation about faith from doctrinal debates to the larger question of how it might inspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging that redeem us from our solitude, helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order.

Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history and, now, evolutionary biology.

Religion should be a bridge to unite us and not a wedge to divide us politically.

O people of the Book; Come, let us join together on the "word" (Unity of God), that is common to us all

Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.

When you say you don't get religion, you're just saying that you don't get organized religion.

The Moslems say their Koran was written by God. The Hindus say the Vedas were; we say the Bible was, and we are but interested witnesses in deciding absolutely and exclusively for ourselves

Today we must secure not a clash between civilizations, but a reconciliation and bringing together of the values of Islam and Christianity.

The Christians of this century (the seventh) seem by their superstitious doctrine to exclude from the kingdom of heaven such as had not contributed by their offerings to augment the riches of the clergy or the church

When I, Constantine Augustus, as well as I Licinius Augustus fortunately met near Mediolanurn [Milan], and were considering everything that pertained to the public welfare and security, we thought —, among other things which we saw would be for the good of many, those regulations pertaining to the reverence of the Divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we might grant to the Christians and others full authority to observe that religion which each preferred; whence any Divinity whatsoever in the seat of the heavens may be propitious and kindly disposed to us and all who are placed under our rule. And thus by this wholesome counsel and most upright provision we thought to arrange that no one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion, or of that religion which he should think best for himself

The loss of respect for religion is the dry rot of social institutions. The idea of God as the Creator and Father of all mankind is to the moral world, what gravitation is in the natural; it holds everything else together and causes it to revolve around a common center. Take this away and any ultimate significance to life falls apart. There is then no such thing as collective humanity, but only separate molecules of men and women drifting in the universe with no more cohesion and no more meaning than so many grains of sand have meaning for the sea.

All the drama you see about Christianity or the Catholic religion? People are seeing through that, and there are really authentic people out there with faith.

I'm so happy I married a fellow Catholic because I think that marriage is tough enough - that's one area that's just not something we argue about. There's no contention about it because we're both on the same page.

Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity.

I intend to make Scientology as accessible to as many people as I can.

I think I could make the case for any kind of organized religion, but I'm not an expert in those, so let me narrow my focus to talk about Christianity.

No religion can be considered in abstraction from its followers, or even from its various types of followers.

No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as 'what a man does with his solitude.'

Religions are maintained by people. People who can't get laid, because sex is the first great earthly pleasure. But if you can't get that, power is a pretty good second one. And that's what religion gives to people. Power. Power is sex for people who can't get or don't want or aren't any good at sex itself.

The religions of mankind must be classed among the mass-delusions of this kind. No one, needless to say, who shares a delusion ever recognizes it as such.

Religion is the centre which unites, and the cement which connects the several parts of members of the political body.

Religion is fire which example keeps alive, and which goes out if not communicated.