John Shelby Spong Quotes

I never thought about heaven per se. I think when you're dead, you're dead. If anything happens after that, you just hope you don't go to hell.

Sometimes, an inability to believe in Satan reflects a larger inability to believe in a spiritual plane at all.

I was exposed to a mix of cultures, lots of different religions and beliefs. I was a spiritual kid and went to Indian powwows and Buddhist temples. But over a period of time, with reading and thinking, I started to feel it was all so absurd: The whole idea of life after death is ridiculous.

Jews, Christians, and Muslims all profess belief in immortality, but the veneration paid to the first century of life is proof that they truly believe only in those hundred years, for they destine all the rest, throughout eternity, to rewarding or punishing what one did when alive.

I want to believe there's a heaven. But I can't not believe there's a hell.

Belief in heaven and hell is a big deal in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and some forms of doctrinaire Buddhism. For the rest of us it's simply meaningless. We don't live in order to die, we live in order to live.

Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I don't believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject. What we know is this: When we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and thoughts somehow survive the experience of dying or they don't. If they do, that opens up every possibility you could think of. If they don't, it's just blotto. The end.

If I don't believe in Jesus, maybe I don't believe in Hell. Did you ever think of that? You're so excited about it, why don't you go to Hell? It's your concept; you invented it.

Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.

I actually do believe in life after death.

When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.

Why do people embrace God? In my opinion, belief in God and an afterlife is a necessary extension of man's need to feel that this life does not end with what we call death.

Unless you're flat out dead, you have to think of some other questions like: what's on the other side? It brings up issues of God, or no God. How does he play into this? Or he, or she, or it? How does it all play into this?

Religion has convinced us that there's something else entirely other than concerns about suffering. There's concerns about what God wants, there's concerns about what's going to happen in the afterlife.

What are the chances there is a God, really?

There are but two places where all go after death, white and black, rich and poor; those places are Heaven and Hell. Heaven is a place made for those, who are born again, and who love God, and it is a place where they will be happy for ever.

I think that the core doctrines of Christianity - the incarnation, the resurrection, life after death-these are as strong as ever. In fact, the belief in life after death has increased in this century.

If you are going to go to Heaven, I'm going to Heaven. But I don't believe in Heaven.

I don't believe in an afterlife.

In every religion there is an element of the supernatural, varying with the influence of pure reason over its devotees.

Sure I believe in God and the Devil, but they don't have to have pitchforks and a long white beard.

Religion has nothing to do with God. It's a fundamental attitude of human beings, who ask about the origins of life and what happens after death. For many, the answer is a personal god. In my opinion, it's religion that produces God, not the other way round.

It would be an exaggeration to say I'm not afraid of death, but I'm not afraid of what comes after, because I'm not a believer.

I don't believe in the afterlife.

If you believe in God, believe in Death Row East.