Daniel J. Boorstin Quotes

The slayers of the heretics are the worst heretics of all.

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.

Those prepared to die for the truth, as a rule make many others die with them, often before them, and at times instead of them.

What superstition and fanaticism on every side!

If my son were to oppose the Catholic Church, I myself would carry the faggots to burn him.

May we not return to those scoundrels of old, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first took the knife from the altar to make victims of those who refused to be their disciples?

I really don't want to offend anybody, but I find all forms of religious fundamentalism frightening.

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.

The most rabidly religious people are the most rabidly evil.

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.

I think religion is a mistake - I'm exhausted by its self-righteousness. I think atheists should start screaming for attention like religious folks do.

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.

How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?

Obstinacy in religious understanding leads to backwardness as in Muslims’, prevalence of violence and intolerance.

Sectarianism, bigotry, and it's horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful Earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now.

Over the course of history many religions have fallen victim to violent interpretations.

Neo-Islam's attempt at destroying individual freedoms is as much a threat to Islam as the Inquisition was to Christianity.

The evils which sapped the nation’s strength had all been wrought in the name of religion.

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and overzealous piety.

The only time I every fear religion is when it has the power of the state behind it.

The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and ... people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.

Religion has both bolstered and undermined stable self-government. It has advanced political reform and human rights, but also induced irrationality, extremism, and terrorism.

Religious clerics have a big share in the rise on intolerance towards minorities. A country like Pakistan where literacy rate is low and people are naïve when it comes on opinion making, it becomes easy to be successful in manipulating people’s minds. The manipulation of their opinions by those who are extremists in their views and beliefs always meet disaster. These clerics have played an ugly role most of the times and their preaching of hate speech always led to more sufferings and disaster for minorities

Whenever the clergy succeeded in conquering political power in any country the result has been disastrous to the interests of religion and inimical to the progress of humanity.