Rigoberta Menchu Quotes

Some people say that we here have no freedom of religion, ... In reality, the people in that country are the ones who were forced to embrace a religion.

Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.

I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won't let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.

Rather than being any longer a threat to the established … order, Christianity became what practically all this earth's religions, launched in the name of spiritual enlightenment and freedom, have also become: a powerful way of perpetuating that order.

Freedom of religion also implies the right not to have or profess a religion. This is sometimes overlooked. It is a sad commentary on religion that religionists, probably quite well-meaning at times, have throughout history tried to force fellow human beings into a required religious mold. Apart from the very wrong theological assumptions involved, this is a flagrant violation of the dignity of the human person. Coerced religion is demeaning and of little value.

Zealous groups threaten to infringe civil liberties when they seek government support to impose their own religious views on non-adherents. This has taken many forms, including attempts to introduce organized prayer in public schools, to outlaw birth control and abortion, and to use public tax revenues to finance religious schools.

I don't belong to a working system. They only select people if you belong to one so you can be controlled.

Persecution is as necessary to religion as pruning to an orchard.

Many people are trying to remove religion from public life. Under the banner of pluralism, cultural and political leaders are seeking to push all talk about God out of the public arena.

Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but it is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the pope, armed with fire and fagot, and the other is the pope selling or granting indulgences.

Many people out there don't have a choice, in choosing their friends and the people they're being manipulated by.

religion and morality are a much better whip to keep people in submission than even the club and the gun.

Men can be attracted but not forced to the faith. You may drive people to baptism, (but) you won't move them one step further in religion.

If there wasn't a God we would have to invent one to keep people sane.

The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally.

The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.

That was an interesting aspect: to go to war with the Church to fight for the very thing that the Church was meant to give to people.

If they hear people running for - president... despite all the other problems that George W. Bush made after 9/11 when he basically said after going to a mosque in Washington, "We are not at war with Islam or Muslims. We are at war with violent extremism. We are at war with people who use their religion for purposes of power and oppression."

We live in a world where people say that you can believe anything you want about God.

I can't take it seriously when people get excited and scream that religion is in danger, and similar stupidities.

Many people in this world are merely playing a role, unaware that there is an Invisible Hand guiding them.

All of us should remember that the federal government is not some mysterious institution comprised of buildings, files and paper. The people are the government. What we create we ought to be able to control.

The best type of government comes from a government that is scrutinized by the people when they have true information about our governments, major corporations, other power actors in society.

When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured; but Machiavelli reigned.

I get sent Bibles. I have a collection of about 20 in my room. People think I need to be guided.