Karl Popper Quotes

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

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

Whether one believes in evolution, intelligent design, or Divine Creation, one thing is certain. Since the beginning of history, human beings have been at war with each other, under the pretext of religion, ideology, ethnicity and other reasons. And no civilization has ever willingly given up its most powerful weapons.

I would say that, intellectually, Catholicism had no more impact on me than did social theory.

In the name of noble purposes men have committed unspeakable acts of cruelty against one another.

God save us from religion.

I believe that dogma is often evil.

You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to surmise that war has a perverse appeal for the human race, nor is the attraction limited to religious fanatics committing mass murder and suicide for the greater glory of God.

There is nothing as potentially polarizing as religion.

No religion can be built on force.

Terror … is often the result of giving politics a sacred, absolute dimension.

I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril.

When a man is required to believe certain doctrines, he is not free to think. A creed is to keep the mind from inquiry. Questions lead to doubt, and doubt is the death of faith.

A lot of evil has been perpetrated in the name of confronting evil.

May we not return to those scoundrels of old, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first took the knife from the altar to make victims of those who refused to be their disciples?

I am no Calvinist, but it seems to me neither right nor worthy of a Christian to seek, for the sake of differences between the doctrine of Calvin and the Confession of Augsburg, to have this land swarming with troops and inundated with blood.

There is social intimidation by the self-appointed brigades of the thought police… they exist in every society, whether they are of the religious, nationalistic or atheistic variety. Dogmatists, who are convinced that they know better, that only the way they think is acceptable and who would deprive others of their right to hear differing and discordant voices.. They try to achieve this by either silencing the author or scaring away the public.

In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars

Blood is shed over politics, religion and the two in combination.

Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.

I don't criticise anybody, but I just don't understand religion. Like I don't understand nationalism. These are the two things that cause wars. I don't understand why they are supposed to be good things.

I personally am not religious. I think, put into the wrong hands, it's incredibly dangerous. It's the reason for most of the wars that have been fought around the world, and it's pretty ridiculous when you think about what they're actually arguing over.

Religion is a very sensitive subject and reason for wars all over the world.

In the past, most wars were motivated by the idea of nationhood. Today, however, wars are incited above all using religion as an excuse.

Intolerance has become, I think, the reigning ideology of the world today, the intolerance versus intolerance and it's taken on lethal proportions.