Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes.
Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle.
Oculus really started popularizing a new approach using cellphone screen technology, a wide field of view, and super-low-latency sensor tracking. It's not crappy stuff that doesn't work and makes everybody sick. When you experience Oculus technology, it's like getting religion on contact. People that try it walk out a believer.
We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think religion stops people from thinking. I think it justified crazies.
As the spiritual leader of six million people, the Dalai Lama can be credited with a significant renunciation of the authority of tradition - of the conventional politics of national self-interest as well as of religion.
A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Twenty five percent of Israeli citizens are not even Jewish. Anybody can become an Israeli citizen if you qualify. Religion is not a criterion for citizenship.
We've all been brought up with the view that religion has some kind of special privileged status. You're not allowed to criticise it.
People really, really hate their religion being criticized. It's as though you've said they had an ugly face; they seem to identify personally with it.
When you objectively observe the most spiritual area to which modern people devote themselves, the religions, ask yourself if the basis of modern culture, particularly in religion, is not human self-interest. It is typical of modern sermons that the preacher criticizes people for their selfishness.
God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.
Who made these laws? That's what I want to know. So that's why I wear two crosses now. I call it double cross. I believe in God-not religion.
I always point out to my Passover guests that the Hebrews were not living in isolation. They were at the crossroads of several great, elaborate cultures with their own mythology and religion and art and architecture and cultural belief. In fact, so many of the mythologies of the world describe the same events, just from different points of view.
The intersection of religion and world politics has often been a bloody crossroads.
Is it really true that religion makes people more kindly, generous, or loving? History tends to disprove this. The worst wars, the most vicious Inquisitions, the cruelest pogroms and persecutions, were both fomented and supported by religion.
There is nothing intrinsic linking any religion with any act of violence. The crusades don't prove that Christianity was violent. The Inquisition doesn't prove that Christianity tortures people. But that Christianity did torture people.
Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business.
Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers.
Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.
