Johan Huizinga Quotes

Reason is the enemy of faith.

Theology is in disrepute among most Western intellectuals. The word is taken to mean a passe form of religious thinking that embraces irrationality and dogmatism. So too, Scholasticism.

I think there's been a big problem between religion, or organized religion, and spirituality.

Religion is not a conclusion of the reason.

The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking.

I am optimistic when I consider the spiritual dimension which the scientist's discipline forces him to ignore.

Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence.

Science and religion are both the same thing. They're there; they're life. If it's not science, it's not a fact.

In the forefront of science, there is not much difference between religion and science. People harbor beliefs. That's what happens when people believe something religiously.

Through history, people look for something spiritual. The greatest scientists in the world were men of religion and faith, too.

Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles never did and never will agree.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

I'm interested in the hope we invest in science, and the disappointment we can feel when science flattens, or 'explains,' the larger mysteries of religion.

I think that there's a strain in journalism that believes that anyone who surrenders him- or herself to faith and to belief necessarily checks reason and rationality at the door.

Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.

You can believe what you want religiously. Religion is one thing, but science, provable science, is something else.

Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.

My views as an individual ought not to be confused with my views as a scientist - the minute you try to mingle God and science, you get into trouble. Metaphysics has its place, and science has its place; don't mix the two.

In reality, both religion and science are expressions of man's uncertainty. Perhaps the paradox is that certainty, whether it be in science or religion, is dangerous.

The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me purely factitious, fabricated on the one hand by short-sighted religious people, who confound ... theology with religion; and on the other by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension.

Divine Nature cannot be apprehended by human reason.

All religions are, in some basic sense, irrational.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

I hold that religion and faith are two different things.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.