Chris Patten Quotes

There's no question that there is more anti-religion noise in Britain.

The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence; whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians. Test Oaths and established creeds should be avoided as the worst of evils.

When men stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.

It would be intolerant if I advocated the banning of religion, but of course I never have.

If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.

Atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them -- and then they leap.

The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer.

Where religion is trivialized, one is unlikely to find persecution.

To speak against religion (the Christian) is breaking down the bond of good government.

I'm an atheist.

America's freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others.

No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another.

Just as no one can be forced into belief, so no one can be forced into unbelief.

In bringing the subject of religious oppression to a wider audience, I didn't just want to kick the Catholic Church but to poke a finger in the throat of theocracy and to let it be known that people shouldn't tolerate this anymore.

I feel like we need to be aware of the ways we use and misuse religious dogma: whether it takes us deeper into love and inclusion or it separates us.

I enjoy being Jewish, but I'm an atheist... I hate fundamentalism in all its forms. Jews, Catholics, Baptists, I think they are all potty and capable of destroying the world.

I'm personally a nonbeliever, so I'm struggling with if we really need religion.

I don’t see a bit of danger from us having an established religion.

I believe in an America where the separation of Church and State is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President, should he be a Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners how to vote.... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant or Jewish ... for while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist.

We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to practice faith or not, and those who believe are free and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.

The current climate of religiosity can be stifling to nonbelievers, and it helps now and then to cry foul. For one thing, some of the numbers surrounding the deep religiousness of America, and the rarity of non-belief, should be held to the fire of skepticism

It is the duty of every Catholic to persecute heretics.

The decision on the Buddhas was made according to Islamic rules. It was not done to insult any particular religion, but once an Islamic order is made, it cannot be changed.

Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform

We persecute nobody for religion. We regard religion as an error and fight it with education.