Barack Obama Quotes

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.

I think we have to give religion its due. I think we have to respect those for whom religion is important, but equally respect those who can achieve good morality without religion.

Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.

Unity and secularism will be the motto of the government. We can't afford divisive polity in India.

In a pluralistic society, public schools are places for persons of all faiths and none. Schools may neither promote nor denigrate any religion.

Freedom arises from a multiplicity of sects, which pervades America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty.

A secular state can offer security to Muslims since it is compatible with acknowledging that religion is important and, that in a religiously plural environment the state does not allow believers in one religious tradition to enjoy a privileged status. All are citizens with equal rights.

Catholics and Protestants remained faithful to their religions, but stopped thinking of them in zero-sum terms and gradually embraced the separation between church and state.

People in the Middle East, people everywhere, want peace. But unfortunately too many fail to recognize that that lasting peace can only be found with pluralistic, secular government.

We have a diverse population and have to maintain that and keep religion away from politics.

I believe in secular politics.

There is no society that protects freedom of religion more than secular democracies, because in societies where one religion rules, different viewpoints will be labelled as heresy and blasphemy. Why? Because the society is built on religion - not freedom for all points of view.

In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects.

The United States is not a Christian nation. It is a great nation with Christians, among others, in it. But our greatness is based on the fact that there is no official religion.

I have been an atheist my entire adult life. I do not proselytize, however. Nor do I question the faith of others. I just don't want to be obliged to accept someone else's faith as a factor in my government.

My definition of secularism is very clear. The sole religion of the Government is Nation First, the holy book is the Constitution.

I think it's very important for people who are serving (in office) to make sure there's a separation of church and state.

Ideally, I'd like everybody to be secular.

I'm not against religion in the sense that I feel I can't tolerate it, but I think written into the rubric of religion is the certainty of its own truth. And since there are 6,000 religions currently on the face of the earth, they can't all be right. And only the secular spirit can guarantee those freedoms and it's the secular spirit that they contest.

You should understand that private faith does not force public decisions. That's how you work at compromise. I haven't given up what I believe, but I live in community - in a city, state, nation, and world - with people who don't believe what I believe. That doesn't make them defective or inferior.

Most people I know I think agree and even many theists agree with this. We don't want government involved. When atheists become the majority in this country, I don't think the theists are going to be glad to have "one nation under no God" inserted in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason. Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Yes, believers and non-believers and skeptics can all live together and get along. But there cannot be an imperialistic imposition of religion by the state or by the church. All people must be equal--believers, skeptics, disbelievers, atheists, and those who chose religion. Unless we are all deemed equal, and unless the morality of disbelief is deemed the equivalent of the morality of belief, we will simply be tolerated, and that is not the American way.

We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true.

To me the separation of church and state is a thread that ought to run through public policy so that we can always recognize that we make laws in this country, based not on theology of any particular group, but on the basis of a commonly shared values of the Constitution itself.