Religious Doctrines Quotes

He (Mohammed) seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh urges us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected; he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity.

…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.

It's not about terror or anything else, it's about politics, and so it becomes more about politics than it does about faith. Orthodox rabbis - that is about faith. There's not a single Orthodox rabbi on this list. This is all Reformed rabbis that were - that made this list.

Finding that no religion was based upon facts, but that all of them were in opposition to facts, and could not therefore be true, I began to reflect upon what must be the condition of mankind, trained from infancy to believe in these errors, and to make them the rule of their conduct.

For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain. If people need religion, ignore them and maybe they will ignore you, and you can go on with your life. It wasn't until I was beginning to do Star Trek that the subject of religion arose. What brought it up was that people were saying that I would have a chaplain on board the Enterprise. I replied, "No, we don't.

We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.

After all, religion has been around a lot longer than Darwinism.

Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."

If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.

In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight.

No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.

Organized religions by their very natures are misleading.

Doctrine divides, but doctrine also unites. It binds together the hearts of God's people who celebrate the truth of God together.

To talk of comparing the Bible with other "sacred books" so called, such as the Koran...or the book of Mormon, is positively absurd. You might as well compare the sun with a rushlight, or Skiddaw with a molehill, or St. Paul's with an Irish hovel, or the Portland vase with a garden pot, or the Kohinoor diamond with a bit of glass. God seems to have allowed the existence of these pretended revelations, in order to prove the immeasurable superiority of His own Word.

Do you know what religion is, Martin, my friend? -I can barely remember Lord's Prayer. -A beautiful and well-crafted prayer. Poetry aside, a religion is really a moral code that is expressed through legends,myths, or any type of literary device in order to establish a system of beliefs, values , and rules with which to regulate a culture or a society.

The difference between religions and cults is determined by how much real estate is owned.

These religions that are so freighted with their own pomposity are no better than inspired guesses.

Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.

These [religious ideas] are given out as teachings, are not precipitates of experience or end-results of thinking: they are illusions, fullfilments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind.

Not everyone can be a theologian, but everyone should know some theology.

I have a very difficult time believing that there is some being who is going to invite me into heaven or not on the basis of whether I wear a yarmulke or whether I have been sprinkled with water while someone said something. Some of the ritual is very beautiful, but I find it difficult to believe that it really has to do with God. I believe that dogma comes from man.

To talk about religion except in terms of human psychology is an irrelevance.

He, who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all differ.

Theology is to religion what poisons are to food.