Thomas Paine Quotes

If power made one evil, then God would be the Devil.

It is only partly true that religion does more harm than good in society. The community makes God into the image it wants, vengeful, or milky sweet, or scrupulously just, and so on.

Anytime there's a God, there has to be a devil. And anytime there's good, there has to be evil. And the evil sometimes is the best!

Whether or not the devil is really good or evil is something that we don't really know.

Let the Bible be the Bible. It's not about science. It's not accurate history. It is a grab bag of religious fantasies written by many authors. Some of its myths, like the Star of Bethlehem, are very beautiful. Others are dull and ugly. Some express lofty ideals, such as the parables of Jesus. Others are morally disgusting.

When holiness is achieved by conforming to God's will, one knows intuitively that which is wrong and that which is right before the Lord. Holiness speaks when there is silence, encouraging that which is good or reproving that which is wrong.

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.

There is a painful joke that Europeans often tell of their Gallic neighbors: God created France, the most beautiful country in the world with so much good in it, and ended up feeling guilty about it. He had to do something to make it fair. And so, he created the French people.

In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also limit his stupidity.

My father hates organized religion, probably because he hates the God who killed his little girl back in 1968. I find religions variously bemusing.

I sometimes think God allows Great Britain to be unprincipled for the good of mankind.

To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.

I realized that conventional views of Christian faith that I'd heard when I was growing up were simply made up - and I realized that many parts of the story of the early Christian movement had been left out.

Evil and good are God's right hand and left.

It's a great responsibility before God, the judge who guides us, who draws us to truth and good, and in this sense the church must unmask evil, rendering present the goodness of God, rendering present his truth, the truly infinite for which we are thirsty.

You know, the Bible is so clear. Go to Genesis chapter nine and you will find the death penalty clearly stated in Genesis chapter nine... God ordains the death penalty!

As for the Devil - that is somebody our religion tried to do without for a long time.

Love of God is not always the same as love of good.

If our wondrous kindness is evidence for God, is our capacity for great evil proof of the Devil?

The God of the Old Testament is the depiction of evil.

I don't have a problem believing in God and Jesus. But in Genesis one has to wonder about these sentences that just go on and end without finishing. The thought is unfinished. Where did Adam go? What is he doing? Hello? There has to be some pages missing.

If religion had a good purpose, then man would have created something great. But we're man: we mess up everything. We mess up nature. We mess up God. We take what is given to us and make it into what we think it should be.

In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.

I think I've always been good so God wouldn't strike me dead.

We don't have some message from God that gives us a list of what's good and what's not good. Obviously, we have to make our own flawed judgments about each thing.