John William Draper Quotes

Religion claims to be in possession of an absolute truth; but its history is a history of errors and heresies.

Finding that no religion was based upon facts, but that all of them were in opposition to facts, and could not therefore be true, I began to reflect upon what must be the condition of mankind, trained from infancy to believe in these errors, and to make them the rule of their conduct.

Finding that no religion is based on facts and cannot be true, I began to reflect what must be the condition of mankind trained from infancy to believe in error.

In order to have faith, or follow any other organized religion, I'd have to suspend a degree of disbelief.

I believe the fast track to atheism is reading the Bible. I've read it three times all the way through. It's a big part of our culture, a big part of our history. I don't just read things I agree with.

The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.

If religion is about truth, why is it so afraid of error?

Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error… the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong.

I know too much about religion to be religious, so to speak, and I am not that stupid, either.

I questioned the blind faith demanded by my religion, which was Islam.

Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, doubt (called by Galileo the father of invention), be in religion what the priests term it, the greatest of sins?

Whatever sympathy I feel towards religions, whatever admiration for some of their adherents, whatever historical or biological necessity I see in them, whatever metaphorical truth, I cannot accept them as credible explanations of reality; and they are incredible to me in proportion to the degree that they require my belief in positive human attributes and intervenient powers in their divinities.

Those to whom his word was revealed were always alone in some remote place, like Moses. There wasn't anyone else around when Mohammed got the word either. Mormon Joseph Smith and Christian Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy, had exclusive audiences with God. We have to trust them as reporters--and you know how reporters are. They'll do anything for a story.

If revealed religions have revealed anything it is that they are usually wrong.

The hallmark of religion is to distrust claims made for mortal men. It is in ages of great religious faith that great skepticism can find expression.

I do occasionally envy the person who is religious naturally, without being brainwashed into it or suckered into it by all the organized hustles.

Well you say that it's gospel, But I know that it's only church.

These religions that are so freighted with their own pomposity are no better than inspired guesses.

It seems to me that the bane of our country is a profession of faith either with no basis of real belief, or with no proper examination of the grounds on which the creed is supposed to rest.

Too many instances there are of daring men, who by presuming to sound the deep things of religion, have cavilled and argued themselves out of all religion.

If a religious person says "No, no, no" and they won't listen to science, it makes me think that they don't have faith in their own religion.

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.

It's true that most people find it far more comfortable to trust an authority than to have their faith questioned.

Do you think if it was the fairy tale about a man who lived inside of a whale and it was religion that Jack built a beanstalk today, you would know the difference? Why do you believe in one fairy tale and not the other? Just because adults told you it was true and they scared you into believing it, at pain of death, at pain of burning in hell.

One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.