Pope Francis Quotes

I don't think the 9/11 attacks taught us anything we didn't already know about religion. It has long been obvious - even to the deeply religious - that religious fanaticism is an extremely dangerous deranger of otherwise sane and goodhearted people.

In every religion, you find the same extremists.

The men who committed the atrocities of September 11 were certainly not "cowards," as they were repeatedly described in the Western media, nor were they lunatics in any ordinary sense. They were men of faith—perfect faith, as it turns out—and this, it must finally be acknowledged, is a terrible thing to be.

Ideology always paves the way toward atrocity.

The terrorists hide behind Allah.

All the Abrahamic faiths are marked by violence.

More people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, that is true perversion.

Especially dangerous is crime disguised under political and pseudo-religious motives, such as terrorism and the like.

Terrorists have hijacked our religion.

I don't believe a religion affords any protection if they are connected to any kind of terror.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

In all times, and all countries especially in those countries which are divided within by religious faith, there are always fanatics who will be well contented to be regarded as martyrs.

Organized, yeah. And those who are so sure that their God is the right God that they believe it's ok to kill another person who doesn't believe in their God.

The line between faith and fanaticism is a constantly shifting one,” Dr. Poblocki said. “When does belief become justification? When does right become rationale and crusade become crime?

I am thankful that all the people in the world who absolutely, positively, know what God wants, usually kill mostly each other.

Historically, more people have died of religion than cancer.

When you forcefully suppress religious nationalism, you radicalize it.

I was a Muslim once, remember, and it was when I was most devout that I was most full of hate.

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

Islam, or any religion, will become totalitarian if it is made into an ideology, because that is the nature of ideologies.

The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.

There are atheists and Christians, and there are people in both groups who are a little too heavy-handed.

You're always going to have extremists in every religion.

I had been fascinated with Islam since college - particularly how it could inspire such fervor in our modern age and move a significant number of its followers to horrific acts of violence. That invisible hand moved me to study more and more about Islam.

In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.