Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it.

I needed a lot of the good things that church provided. But as I grew older, it became increasingly hard for me to rationalize the importance of church in my life with the beliefs that it required that were at odds with modern science.

Religion often is misused for purely power-political goals, including war.

It was not just the Church that resisted the heliocentrism of Copernicus.

The enemy of science is not religion. Religion comes in endless shapes and forms... The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.

The theist and the scientist are rival interpreters of nature, the one retreats as the other advances.

There can be no truce between science and religion.

The conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum. The success of science often comes at the expense of religious dogma; the maintenance of religious dogma always comes at the expense of science.

I don't subscribe to organised religion. I've travelled enough to see that adherents of organised religion often attack adherents of other religions.

You know, religion itself, Eastern and Western, is divisive and quarrelsome anyway.

I don't think people by nature are extremists. You will never find a population of extremists. Extremists have existed throughout the centuries on all religions. And what happens is, extremists start to have more leverage when the situation is bad.

Everyone is tearing each other apart in the name of their personal god. And the irony is, by definition, they're probably worshiping the same god.

Conflict between science and religion a dangerous foe.

All too often, the word 'religion' has become identified with those promoting a frankly anti-scientific view of nature and of our place in the natural world.

I think religion has caused so much catastrophe in the world.

It seems true that the growth of science and secularism made organized Christianity feel under threat.

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.

The time has passed in the history of the world when anything is too sacred to be touched, when anything is beyond the reach of the inquiring and scientific spear.

In other words, the Church acknowledges Science as the higher authority.

Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds... is not productive.

Religion is now a matter of private judgment and observance for a majority, and thus we have become a country of not a few hundred different creeds but a few million.

As a scientist I cannot help feeling that all religions are on a tottering foundation. None is perfect or inspired. As for their prophets, there are as many today as ever before, only now science refuses to let them overstep the bounds of common sense.

He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.

The moment religion organizes into a specific creed it becomes a political force. From Moses down to Brigham Young, every creed-founder has been a Statebuilder.

Religious hatreds tend to be merciless and absolute.