John Shelby Spong Quotes

To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

In my opinion, there is one singular problem with religions in general: they are exclusive. To me, this exclusivity is not right.

A religion, even if it calls itself a religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it

You're always going to have extremists in every religion.

Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.

People nearly always believe, and are willing to back it up with weapons and cruelty, that their religion and way of life is better than the other person's.

There is nothing so despicable as a secret society that is based upon religious prejudice and that will attempt to defeat a man because of his religious beliefs. Such a society is like a cockroach — it thrives in the dark. So do those who combine for such an end.

Religion is often just tribalism: pride in a group one was born into, a group that is often believed to have 'God' on its side.

Your mom was right when she told you never to discuss politics and religion because emotions run so high in those arenas. Especially religion.

People have evolved into something selfish, greedy and intolerant. People are unaccepting, because of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation... I've seen it in punk clubs, and I've seen it in the world.

You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.

There is no religion that has a monopoly on bigotry.

The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.

When people unfortunately use religion to facilitate their envy, arrogance and hate, communalism surfaces.

All religions develop, become exclusive, become divisive and quarrelsome.

The story of the decadence of the cathedral as a moral power, a spiritual energizer in civilization, is the sad but inevitable story of dogmatism. It is the story of the struggle of free thought with bigotry, religion making common cause with the wrong side.

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.

In the forefront of science, there is not much difference between religion and science. People harbor beliefs. That's what happens when people believe something religiously.

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.

I don't subscribe to organised religion. I've travelled enough to see that adherents of organised religion often attack adherents of other religions.

Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who think differently from him.

Like one of any minority, I have experienced prejudice.

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

The show doesn't drive home a lesson, but it can open up people's minds enough for them to see how stupid every kind of prejudice can be.

Racism and discrimination of any kind have no place in football.