Stephen Carter Quotes

It's okay for Christians throughout centuries to exterminate races and for their priests to rape little kids throughout decades, but trying to give the people the power to think and be individual, that's evil?

We have become so accustomed to the religious lie that surrounds us that we do not notice the atrocity, stupidity and cruelty with which the teaching of the Christian church is permeated.

Christianity doesn't come into it. George Bush and Tony Blair are not Christians. Religious people believe in the prophets, peace be upon them. Bush believes in the profits and how to get a piece of them. So don't ever confuse this with a war of civilizations.

I am truly amazed that after all this time, religious groups still need to attack entertainment and use these tragedies as a pitiful excuse for their own self-serving publicity. In response to their protests, I will provide a show where I balance my songs with a wholesome Bible reading. This way, fans will not only hear my so-called, violent point of view, but we can also examine the virtues of wonderful 'Christian' stories of disease, murder, adultery, suicide and child sacrifice. Now that seems like 'entertainment' to me.

I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.

In America most orthodox Christians become defensive or testy when they are asked even to break into a sweat. Most of our efforts up until now have been more symbolic than anything else. We are great at holding conventions, gathering for strategy meetings and seminars, holding congresses on evangelism. But where are the people to run our own antidefamation league?

Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.

It is ironic that anyone who appeals to religious values today runs the risk of being called 'divisive' or attacked as an enemy of pluralism.

I find most famous Christians to be full of themselves and of prejudice and self-loathing, masquerading as devout religious belief. I find all fundamentalism to be terrifying and very destructive.

People of faith find themselves marginalized and ridiculed. In a nation where our coins carry the motto, 'In God We Trust...'

An interesting thing about the religious people who run Iran is that one of their problems with Ahmadinejad, who they thought would be one of their guys because he's so religious, is that he actually has some really nutty ideas about religion. He's too religious. He's too literal. I mean, there are plenty of people in Iran who like Ahmadinejad's religious beliefs, just as there are plenty of Christian fundamentalists in America who like George W. Bush's beliefs. But there are also plenty of people who are very uncomfortable with his overt religiosity.

As the courts keep pushing religion out of sight, the press either ignores it or treats it as some sort of emotional affliction. It is hardly any wonder that religion slowly loses its grip on the popular mind.

The Founders never intended to separate Christianity from government, only to keep a single denomination from running the nation.

To desire revival...and at the same time to neglect(personal) prayer and devotion is to wish one way and walk another.

Miserable indeed is that religious teaching which calls itself Christian, and yet contains nothing of the cross.

A week filled up with selfishness, and the Sabbath stuffed full of religious exercises, will make a good Pharisee, but a poor Christian. There are many persons who think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins of the week. Now, God's altar stands from Sunday to Sunday, and the seventh day is no more for religion than any other. It is for rest. The whole seven are for religion, and one of them for rest.

A few years ago, the liberal churches complained that the Calvinistic church denied to them the name of Christian. I think the complaint was confession; a religious church would not complain.

Of course, certain religious expressions are fine. If a tribe of Aqualishes wants to boil rhino horns in frog saliva on the National Mall to honor their deity, we'd have a commemorative postage stamp ready by next December. But let a Christian mention the baby Jesus to a kindergarten class and the ACLU wants an exorcism.

We no longer live in a post-Christian society, we live in an anti-Christian society, one in which the Christian faith is dismissed or ridiculed and Christians are considered suspect and their motives and behavior berated.

Christians talk as though goodness was their idea but good behavior doesn't have any religious origin. Our prisons are filled with the devout.

We can be encouraged knowing that our daily actions and words are declaring Christ to the world.

Vast multitudes of professing Christians fit into the category spoken of here. They call Jesus 'Lord,' but they practice lawlessness. They profess faith in Jesus, but have no regard for the divine law.

There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The Christians say, that among the ancient Jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep. Now they say 'charge it.' 'Put it on the slate.' The Savior will pay it. In this way, rascality is sold on credit, and the credit system in morals, as in business, breeds extravagance.