Morris Raphael Cohen Quotes

The problem is that religion tends to give people bad reasons to be good.

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.

Religion stands, the Church blocking the sun.

Religion may have become a codification of morality, and it may fortify it, but it's not the origin of it.

Religion can be both good and bad - it is spirituality that counts.

Religion is all-too-often a refuge for scoundrels.

To be frank, I suspect that today there is little respect for Christianity as source of moral teaching about goodness.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

It seems to me that if God calls us to anything it's to a life of integrity.

Religion is the solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.

Religion has a good place and it has its good people.

He that speaketh against his own reason speaks against his own conscience, and therefore it is certain that no man serves God with a good conscience who serves him against his reason.

Now I think one of the reasons why religion developed in the way that it did over the centuries was precisely to curb this murderous bent that we have as human beings.

Religion and education are no match for evil without the grace of God.

How do you live with evil? Art is traditionally - certainly with my secular background - the answer, but art is very self-referential, whereas religion claims to go beyond the bounds of human existence.

It is easy to talk on religion, but difficult to practice it.

Religious leaders need to be held accountable for their ideas.

Basic religion is the reason we have morals.

Religion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.

I think the great thing about religion is it's there to teach us the good path and that we're all equal, that we should be treated as such.

Allah's the Arabic term for God. Stand up for God, fight for God, work for God and do the right thing, and go the right way, things will end up in your corner.

In the end, religion teaches us to value truth, justice and freedom.

Faith is part of who I am, yes. I was raised Christian Scientist. The most important thing I saw every single week on the wall at Sunday school was the Golden Rule.

The great test of life is obedience to God.

The law of God, and also the way to life, is written in our hearts: It lieth in no man's supposition and knowing, nor in any historical opinion, but in a good will and well-doing.