Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes

I don't have any superstitions, because I am a Christian.

Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.

Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.

Religion supports and perpetuates the social organization it reflects.

In fact, because people are religious, they think they can do bad things.

The religion of the Bible is the best in the world. I see the infinite value of religion. Let it be always encouraged. A world ofsuperstition and folly have grown up around its forms and ceremonies. But the truth in it is one of the deep sentiments in human nature.

I think once a Catholic, always a Catholic. You never escape. I still have Catholic guilt. It is in its basis a really powerful religion and a really strong set of beliefs. They permeate my work in many ways.

To be honest, politics is so weird. I think it's more heavy than religion.

Surely all Americans have the right to give their money only to those causes which they support. But what kind of society has this created? A society where the ignorant reign. A society where enlightened must hold their tongues. A nation whose politicians must profess half-hearted devotion to an ancient fable or face the disastrous consequences of speaking their true mind.

Kind of the bottom line for me, I don't think people come to the church where I preach to hear my view on politics.

They may be all comprehended under three heads - 1st, Superstition; 2d, Power; 3d, the common interests of society, and the common rights of man.

Theology is Classified Superstition.

I don't think hell exists. I happen to believe in life after death but I don't think it's got a thing to do with reward and punishment. Religion is always in the control business and that's something which people don't really understand.

Can a civilization hold together if man abandons his faith in God?

What we think of Christ influences our thinking and controls our actions.

When it comes to bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims: religion... Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do.

There is but one thing that can free a man from superstition, and that is belief. All history proves it. The most sceptical have ever been the most credulous.

The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.

I don't differentiate much, except in degree, between people who believe in religion from those who believe in astrology, magic or the supernatural.

The same fact that Boccaccio offers in support of religion might be adduced in behalf of a republic: "It exists in spite of its ministers.

Superstition belongs to the essence of mankind and takes refuge, when one thinks one has suppressed it completely, in the strangest nooks and crannies; once it is safely ensconced there, it suddenly reappears.

One would think that a system loaded with such gross and vulgar absurdities as Scripture religion is could never have obtained credit; yet we have seen what priestcraft and fanaticism can do, and credulity believe.

I think science and religion should be separate.

All this [Paul's writing] is nothing better than the jargon of a conjurer who picks up phrases he does not understand to confound the credulous people who come to have their fortune told. Age of Reason

Religion is not removed by removing superstition.