Joseph L. Lewis Quotes

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.

Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.

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.

Violence is not a function of the Islamic faith.

Here [in Jerusalem], no mercy is shown. One hates one's fellow man to the glory of God.

I don't know how racists live with their racism. We need to take the road of love. I don't think folks are born that way; it's learned and taught out of fear.

The growing tide of anti-Semitism shocks the conscious of everyone who values freedom, and the ugly, hateful acts particularly stain the character of democracies where liberty and religious freedom are supposed to be respected.

If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest.

Sometimes, unfortunately, hatred is more powerful than progress.

Religious persecutors are not believers, they are rascals.

Hatred is corrosive of a person's wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation's spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and block a nation's progress to freedom and democracy.

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.

Vilification on the grounds of race or religion is always wrong. There's no place for inciting hatred within our Australia society.

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.

Racism springs from the lie that certain human beings are less than fully human. It's a self-centered falsehood that corrupts our minds into believing we are right to treat others as we would not want to be treated.

Bigotry should never be sanctioned, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness.

Weakness is what brings ignorance, cheapness, racism, homophobia, desperation, cruelty, brutality, all these things that will keep a society chained to the ground, one foot nailed to the floor.

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

It is not our sexual preferences, the color of our skin, the language we speak, nor the religion we practice that creates friction, hatred and wars amongst in society. It is our words and the words of our leaders that can create that disparity.

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.

Intolerance is evidence of impotence.

We cannot judge Christianity by the Ku Klux Klan and we cannot judge Islam by the Taliban.

Religion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women, and coercive toward children.

We all know that those who instigate those doubts are the enemies of God, the enemies of religion and the enemies of all humanity. Their hearts are full of hatred.