Karen Armstrong Quotes

I hate religion. I think it's a neurological disorder.

One of Dawkins' major gripes is against religion. I am in total agreement on that one. I abhor religion.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.

For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.

Religion is a conceited effort to deny the most obvious realities.

Religion [is] the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity

Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way.

Though I believe in God, I don't believe in religion for everybody. Some people who are a little weak and don't want to shoulder any responsibility need Catholicism. For people at the other extreme, there is Christian Science... I think a powerful conscience is worth all the religions put together.

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.

Moderates want their faith respected. They don't want faith itself criticized, and yet faith itself is what is bringing us all this - this lunacy.

There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.

The tension between the essence of spiritual teachings and the harmful fundamentalism that often arises in the name of religion is an issue that has engaged my mind practically as far back as I can remember.

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.

Adherents of almost all religions, as they move away in time from the source, are invariably known to have employed coercion either to keep people within the fold of their religion, or to convert others into their faith.

To give religion two minutes a day, in its own space, isn't exactly selling general morality or atheism short.

For the record, I believe in God, but I do not believe in religion, period.

You give up a lot being an atheist.

It is hard for many people today to make the distinction between religion and religiosity, the latter a dangerous parody of the former.

Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds.

Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people

Religion's crucial role in the lives of many people... is rejected out of hand by the political community, especially the press.

Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was founded upon love.

Religion is the root of quite a lot of evil.

Religion has failed us. Christ was not a Christian. Buddha was not a Buddhist. Mohammed was not a Mohammedan. And yet ever since the dawn of history, we have engaged in conflict and war and terrorism and murder and racism and ethnocentrism and bigotry and prejudice in the name of God.