Quotes on Religion and Philosophy

Eric Hoffer:

To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

The Passionate State of Mind, aphorism 215 (1955)

Florence King:

Any hope that America would finally grow up vanished with the rise of fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalism, with its born-again regression, its pink-and-gold concept of heaven, its literal-mindedness, its rambunctious good cheer ... its anti-intellectualism ... its puerile hymns ... and its faith-healing ... are made to order for King Kid America.

Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye, (1989).

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

Letty Cottin Pogrebin:

The ultra-right would have us believe that families are in trouble because of humanism, feminism, secular education, or sexual liberation, but the consensus of Americans is that what tears families apart is unemployment, inflation, and financial worries.

Family and Politics, ch. 4 (1983)

Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan:

It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity.

Quoted in: J. A. C. Brown, Techniques of Persuasion, ch. 11 (1965)

Pat Robertson:

What Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is doing to evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.

Interview with Molly Ivins, 1993. Quoted from Democratic Underground

Salman Rushdie:

The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.

"Is Nothing Sacred?," Herbert Reade Memorial Lecture, February 6, 1990.

Ilter Turkemen:

A characteristic of religious fundamentalism is to perceive the world as an arena of continuous battle and to nourish it with anger and the desire for revenge.

Hurrieyt September 22, 2001