Leon Wieseltier Quotes

Religion is all bunk.

I could never take the idea of religion very seriously.

Religion has nothing to do with spirituality.

I hold that religion and faith are two different things.

On a personal note, myself, I find religion - I can understand it, I can understand why we have it, as a kind of force on the planet. And I also at the same time think it's ludicrous.

I am fascinated with religion or things that people believe in and question that. I think it's interesting.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.

I would say I have a complicated relationship with institutionalized religion.

Religion is one dimension of culture, a transcendent element of it.

Religions are, for the most part, bad. But religion is not.

If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it.

There's nothing funnier than religion. Try explaining it to a kid. I had it all wrong when I was a kid.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental, mind-shaping, driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

Religion enabled society to organise itself to debate goodness, just as Greek drama had once done.

I just have a sense that, you know, I'm curious about what is religion about, you know? Why do some of us still engage it? It's not because it's a set of old beliefs or old ideas. Or even, particularly, the view that this is the only true religion. Many of us no longer accept those views.

Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.

From a young kid, I was quite interested in religion.

My first dissatisfaction has always been with religion.

I think there's been a big problem between religion, or organized religion, and spirituality.

I think it's more difficult to live without a religion, definitely.

God save us from religion.

Religion is not a conclusion of the reason.

Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don't believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof?

Religion is an irrational construct.