Quotes on Religion and Philosophy

Mary Daly:

A woman's asking for equality in the church would be comparable to a black person's demanding equality in the Ku Klux Klan.

The Church and the Second Sex, New Autobiographical Preface, (1975)

Jerry Falwell:

The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.

Finding Inner Peace and Strength

Paul Goodman:

When the Devil quotes Scriptures, it's not, really, to deceive, but simply that the masses are so ignorant of theology that somebody has to teach them the elementary texts before he can seduce them.

Paul Goodman, "Spring and Summer 1956," sct. 6, Five Years (1966).

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Beatrice Gottlieb:

Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.

The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, (1993)

David Hume:

The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.

Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals

Jerry Falwell:

Most American children do not know that this is a Christian nation... [O]ur Constitution won't work in Russia, won't work in Haiti, won't work in Iraq. It only works where the people believe in the Christ of the Bible. The United States of America.

"Sunday Live with Jerry Falwell," July 23, 1995

Karen A. McClintock:

The church has participated in perpetuating sexual abuse by theologically articulating patriarchy. We have told people that God is the ruler over man and that man is to rule over the woman and children. We have illuminated Bible verses where women and children are counted last or not at all and considered property to be used and disposed of as the man sees fit. Our participation, theologically, in family violence contributes to the shame of victims and perpetrators alike.

Sexual Shame: An Urgent Call to Healing, (2000)

Karen A. McClintock:

Women becoming Christlike leaders in the 1970s and 80s challenged the church's repression of sexuality. The old options for women of being either virgins or whores are at odds with clergywomen as leaders and preachers. Into which category does the new preacher fall?

Sexual Shame: An Urgent Call to Healing, (2000)

Thomas Merton:

It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God's will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe you - try to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as God's will yourself!

Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation, chapter 14, p. 107 (1949).

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George Monbiot:

[T]he founding fathers of the USA, though they sometimes professed otherwise, sensed that they were guided by a divine purpose. Thomas Jefferson argued that the Great Seal of the United States should depict the Israelites, "led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night". George Washington claimed, in his inaugural address, that every step towards independence was "distinguished by some token of providential agency".

[T]he formation of the American identity was part of a process of "supersession". The Roman Catholic church claimed that it had supplanted the Jews as the elect, as the Jews had been repudiated by God. The English Protestants accused the Catholics of breaking faith, and claimed that they had become the beloved of God. The American revolutionaries believed that the English, in turn, had broken their covenant: the Americans had now become the chosen people, with a divine duty to deliver the world to God's dominion.

"America is a religion," Mail & Guardian, July 29, 2003.

Elaine Pagels:

The kind of Christianity that pervades the religious right in this country divides the world between the saved and the damned, between God's people and Satan's people, between good and evil. We have all seen how this is played out in our politics. I used to think that President Bush was using this language as a political ploy. I still think he is, but I also think - to my disappointment - that he also believes it. His conviction that he is God's chosen one to "rid the world of evildoers" blinds him to the evil that he - and we, as Americans - are capable of doing. The conviction that we are on the side of good - of God - is, however, an ancient one - enormously powerful.

Christians invoking terms such as "evil-doers" read the bible, as anyone does, selectively. They choose the parts they like and they leave out the parts they don't. In this case the parts they like are the parts about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, that is - and a life for a life. If someone's taken a life, then their life is required. And that's certainly a biblical tenet. Of course, it's from the Old Testament. You don't hear much about forgiveness and turning the other cheek from our President and his administration. The Old Testament is what they choose for this occasion because it suits their purpose.

Interview with Edge, July 2003

Elaine Pagels:

[C]onservative Christians base their convictions on the belief that the Bible is God's word; it is immutable; it is actually what God himself said and what God meant to say. And of course they know exactly what it means. For many of them, there's no need to think about it - much less allow for interpretation - since its meaning is obvious and simple.

That kind of belief rests on the conviction that Christianity has never changed - it is the same simple message that Jesus and all his disciples taught. Anyone who asks them about the other gospels—like the Gospel of Thomas - is likely to be told that these other "so called gospels" (in the words of one conservative New Testament scholar) are simply rubbish: "These were rubbish in the first century; and they are still rubbish" because they are not the "real" gospels - the New Testament gospel. That attitude, of course, begs the question of why certain gospels are in the New Testament and others were declared "heresy" ( the word means "choice" - something that most bishops did not think that members of "their flock" should have).What they endorse is a simple version of Christian truth: Jesus died for your sins; believe in him, and be saved.

Interview with Edge, July 2003

Bertrand Russell:

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

Why I am Not a Christian, (1927).

Bishop John Spong:

The priesthood in many ways is the ultimate closet in Western civilization, where gay people particularly have hidden for the past two thousand years.

Daily Telegraph, July 12, 1990.

Matt Zemek:

To conservative Christians who support President Bush on virtually every issue, and who generally view the poor as lazy, selfish, and unworthy of support or attention (let alone our dollars, our political focus, our time, or anything else): did Jesus spend his life hobnobbing or schmoozing with the powerful, or did he spend his life in solidarity and relationship with the poor? Did Jesus comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted, or did he comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable? What do the "Sheep and the Goats" and "Good Samaritan" parables say about who Jesus was as a political and economic man?

Liberalism the Right Way (2003)