Ben Stein Quotes

Our culture's tolerance wears thin when religion intrudes on the public discourse... Our schools, courtrooms, and libraries set the tone for the entire society. The message they currently communicate is harsh and unambiguous: religion is offensive and should be kept out of public view.

The problem we have in America is the systematic erosion of our religious values in an attempt by certain liberal groups to expunge our Christian heritage from the public square.

Growing up in Britain as a rather loose Jew, the two things that didn't belong together were freedom and religious intensity. In America, they do. The Founding Fathers made a bet that if you didn't force everyone to profess religion in their own particular way, you could protect intellectual freedom, and religion would flourish.

I don’t see a bit of danger from us having an established religion.

There is little doubt that religious liberty is best exercised within the setting of the secular state.

The Catholics had the right secured to them by the Constitution of worshipping the God of their fathers in the manner dictated by their consciences.... This country is not prepared to establish an inquisition to try and punish men for their religious beliefs.

Probably at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration [i.e., the First Amendment], the general, if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship.

Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than on opinions in physics or geometry.

The Constitution forbids states from banning all religion from public spaces and from making churches the ghettos of religion where all manifestations of faith are kept separate from public life. Religious people have an equal right to participate in the public square and to have their contributions to Oklahoma history and society recognized.

I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don't think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths.

We have taken God out of our education system. We have taken Him out of government. You have lawyers that sue you every time you mention the name of Jesus Christ in any public forum.

Let them be reassured, it has never been one of our intentions to ban religion in society, but solely to protect the national education system from any conspicuous display of religious affiliation.

The Constitution says that government isn't supposed to be infusing religion into our society, and so I asked to have that upheld.

Our Constitution recognises no other power than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observances.

The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

There's no religious test under the constitution. That's what it says. Period.

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

I'm just confused as to where we lost that in America because it is everyone's God-given right to think the way they think and that's fine. That's why our ancestors came here to America, to believe what they want, pray how they want and follow a religion with whoever they want.

The reason religion has thrived in America is because we have a free market in religion. I am opposed to theocracy.

We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to practice faith or not, and those who believe are free and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.

The Republic city seal pervasively invades the daily lives of non-Christians and sends a message that they are outsiders. The Constitution forbids such a result.

Resolved, That we especially protest against this present attempt to force all the people to follow the religious dictates of a part of the people, as establishing a precedent for the entrance of a most dangerous complicity between Church and State, thereby subtly undermining the foundation of liberty, so carefully laid by the wisdom of our fathers.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or Ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

Today, the religion clauses of the 1st Amendment do not need to be fixed; they need to be followed.

The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence; whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians. Test Oaths and established creeds should be avoided as the worst of evils.