Edward Abbey Quotes

My father is an atheist. My mother is Buddhist. They encouraged my siblings and me to take the best part of other religions to make our own belief system.

To the millions of non-Christians who live in this country, “our” culture is not their culture and they have not assimilated Christmas carols. Most people take their religion far too seriously to look upon religious songs as forms of art only. The day “Silent Night” is sung in Buddhist Temples and Jewish Synagogues throughout the United States is the day that “Silent Night” will have been assimilated into “our” culture.”

I think Buddhism is a wonderful philosophy. I've had the good fortune to meet many wonderful teachers from that society.

I was raised Catholic, but then I discovered Buddhism, and I used to have a boyfriend who was a Scientologist, and they are all good religions that help people. As far as I'm concerned, you can have all three religions at once and it's okay!

I was never forced to go to church, and there is a lot of beauty in Christianity that I take in my life as a gift, and there is a lot of beauty in other religions. I'm kind of a spiritual mutt.

There is a great interest in comparative religion and a desire to understand faiths other than our own and even to experiment with exotic cults.

The fact that Western Muslims are free means that they can have enormous impact. But it would be wrong to claim that we are imposing our ways on the West. New ideas are now coming from the West. To be traditional is not so much a question of protecting ourselves as to be traditionalist in principle.

What sort of Europe do we want to have? Parallel societies? Muslim communities living together with the Christian community?

My grandad's a gospel singer, and his children were singers, too. But I don't believe in God in the same way... not religion; it breaks us up too much. The same with musical styles - it breaks people up. I believe they are all one thing - why not put them together?

If people invited Muslims into their home every week by way of a TV show would go a long way to making people feel comfortable with Muslims and countering misconceptions about who we are. Plus, of course, that will make it easier for us to impose sharia law across America.

Our Muslim friends must learn from previous waves of immigration.

…the doctrinal differences between Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself.

In today’s interconnected and globalized world, it is now commonplace for people of dissimilar world views, faiths and races to live side by side. It is a matter of great urgency, therefore, that we find ways to cooperate with one another in a spirit of mutual acceptance and respect.

Buddha says: "Do not flatter your benefactor!". Let one repeat this saying in a Christian church : it immediately purifies the air of everything Christian.

I've worked with a lot of different Muslim groups around America. I've met with a lot of them, and I've heard how important it is for them to feel that they are wanted and included and part of our country, part of our homeland security, and that's what I want to see.

The most practical thing in the world is common sense and common humanity.

The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: we are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.

I am a reformed Taoist, part-time Buddhist, Hindu, animist, pagan, Jewish mystic, and Christian. I always got along great with priests and rabbis and mullahs and gurus, even though I spend most of my life constructively criticizing them.

The big issue of our time is trying to deal with extremism based on a perversion of religion and how you get peaceful coexistence between people of different faiths and cultures.

I am a proud Christian who has been greatly tutored by Hindus and Buddhists and Sufis and others, and I stand and I speak from that place.

Any creed whose basic doctrines do not include respect for the creeds of others, is simply power politics masquerading as philosophy.

I myself am Muslim and I stand on the side of an open society.

I don't affiliate myself with any specific religious group. I connect to different ritualistic aspects of different belief systems, and I see the connecting thread between all religious beliefs.

Proselytism is tolerated by Hinduism. Any man, whether he be a Shudra or Chandala, can expound philosophy even to a Brahmin. The truth can be learnt from the lowest individual, no matter to what caste or creed he belongs.

We need to not be scared [of muslim], but understand each other. When you're around these people, you see they have much more in common than their differences.