Mason Cooley Quotes

Theology is a science of mind applied to God.

The usefulness of religion - the fact that it gives life meaning, that it makes people feel good - is not an argument for the truth of any religious doctrine. It's not an argument that it's reasonable to believe that Jesus really was born of a virgin or that the Bible is the perfect word of the creator of the universe.

Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but--more frequently than not --struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.

An important function of theology is to keep religion tied to reason and reason to religion. Both roles are of essential importance for humanity.

A lot of people have a belief system that is strictly based on religious dogma.

In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight.

After all, religion has been around a lot longer than Darwinism.

Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."

Knowledge and history are the enemies of religion.

I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.

Leading Christian theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas were not what today might be called 'strict constructionists.' Rather, they celebrated reason as the means to gain greater insight into divine intentions.

Many of us view the bible and other religious teachings as mythology.

Judaism boasts of no exclusive revelation of eternal truths that are indispensable to salvation, of no revealed religion in the sense in which that term is usually understood.

I think there's nothing about evolution in the Bible; I think this is a statement of religious insecurity. But people have their beliefs.

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

Conservatives and liberals understand the Christian faith as a set of ideas because, so understood, Christianity seems to be a set of beliefs assessable to anyone upon reflection.

In order to have faith, or follow any other organized religion, I'd have to suspend a degree of disbelief.

I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It's that simple!

In every religion there is an element of the supernatural, varying with the influence of pure reason over its devotees.

Religion is not a conclusion of the reason.

I do not purpose to discuss faith in its dogmatic sense today.

There's no way you can misunderstand the teachings of the Qur'an, there's no way you can misunderstand the teachings of the Bible, there's no way you can misunderstand the teachings of the Bhaghavad Gita, or of the Book of Mormon, or of the other sacred texts of many of those religions.

Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.

You subtract Christianity from Huston Smith, and there is no Huston Smith left.

Theology in general seems to me a substitution of human ingenuity for divine wisdom.