Albert Schweitzer Quotes

I was raised Catholic and didn't like the dogma and exclusivity of that teaching but I was moved by the moral teachings and by the power of the Jesus fellow.

No one has the right to destroy another person's belief by demanding empirical evidence.

When we become advocates of a creed, something dies; we do not believe God, we only believe our belief about Him.

I think [religion] is presumptuous and I think it is silly, because it makes you believe that you are less than what you can be. As long as you can blame everything on some unseen deity, you don’t ever have to be responsible for your own behavior.

Organized religion is primarily man putting words in God's mouth. That's how I basically feel about that. But, I do believe in believing and I admire it. I just don't think it should be exclusive or judgmental.

Religion becomes a matter of belief, and belief acts as a limitation on the mind; and the mind then is never free. But it is only in freedom that you can find out what is true, what is God, not through any belief; because your belief projects what you think God ought to be, what you think ought to be true. If you believe God is love, God is good, God is this or that, your very belief prevents you from understanding what is God, what is true.

Do you, good people, believe that Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden and that they were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge? I do. The church has always been afraid of that tree. It still is afraid of knowledge. Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man.

Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.

In religion and politics, people's belief's and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination

Let those who believe, believe. Let those who doubt, doubt.

We live in a world where people say that you can believe anything you want about God.

Religion becomes a matter of belief, and belief acts as a limitation on the mind; and the mind then is never free.

In dogmatics our question is: What are we to think and say?

It is an irrational claim to believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and at the same time to hold that the greater part of his teachings have no application at the present time. If you say that the reason why the powers do not follow them that believe (as Christ said they would) is because you have not faith enough and are not pure enough-that will be all right. But to say that they have no application at the present time is to be ridiculous.

I think religion might throw up a kind of resistance, but I think if one talks about conditioning we can all kind of understand that.

What's up is faith, what's down is heresy.

What has religion to do with facts? Nothing.

It's not what we believe that makes us happy but the act of believing. In anything.

The right belief is like a good cloak, I think. If it fits you well, it keeps you warm and safe. The wrong fit however, can suffocate.

What did I really think fifteen years ago? A nonbeliever, I felt guilty in the midst of all those believers. And since it seemed to me that they were in the right, I decided to believe, as you might decide to take an aspirin: It can't hurt and you might get better.

Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science.

Christianity is a pestilent superstition.

I think there's a faith formula in that verse: believe plus receive equals become. So I think believing's important, having intellectual agreement with Christian doctrine is important, but there has to be a time when we receive God's gift of grace - not that we've earned it or merit it or deserve it - but receive this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased on the cross for us.

Religion is confining and imprisoning and toxic because it is based on ideology and dogma. But spirituality is redeeming and universal.

No passion is stronger in the breast of man than the desire to make others believe as he believes