Religions Quotes

“What is pulp novel to literature, religion is to philosophy.”
― Abhaidev, The Gods Are Not Dead

“There are two kinds of religions; those which we can criticize, and those which I shouldn’t be talking about.”
― Abhaidev, The Gods Are Not Dead

“It may be that in the belief of the possibility of redemption, people willingly do wrong. Redemption waits, like a side door, there in whatever court of judgement we eventually find ourselves. Not even the payment of a fine is demanded, simply the empty negotiation that absolves responsibility. A shaking of hands and off one goes, through that side door, with the judge benignly watching on. Culpability and consequences neatly evaded.

There is, in this, no moral compass. No need for one, for every path leads to the same place, where blessing is passed out, no questions asked.

The cult of the Redeemer... it is an abomination.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Killing in the name of religion is killing a religion.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“At least since the first petals of the counterculture bloomed across Europe and the United States in the 1960s, it has been fashionable to affirm that all religions are beautiful and all are true. This claim, which reaches back to All Religions Are One (1795) by the English poet, printmaker, and prophet William Blake, is as odd as it is intriguing.¹ No one argues that different economic systems or political regimes are one and the same. Capitalism and socialism are so obviously at odds that their differences hardly bear mentioning. The same goes for democracy and monarchy. Yet scholars continue to claim that religious rivals such as Hinduism and Islam, Judaism and Christianity are, by some miracle of the imagination, essentially the same, and this view resounds in the echo chamber of popular culture, not least in Dan Brown's multi-million-dollar Da Vinci Code franchise.”
― Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter

“The world's religious rivals are clearly related, but they are more like second cousins than identical twins. They do not teach the same doctrines. They do not perform the same rituals. And they do not share the same goals.”
― Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter

“At the heart of this project is a simple, four-part approach to the religions, which I have been using for years in the classroom and at lectures around the world. Each religion articulates:

* a problem;
* a solution to this problem, which also serves as the religious goal;
* a technique (or techniques) for moving from this problem to this solution; and
* an exemplar (or exemplars) who chart this path from problem to solution.”
― Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter

“Each of us is shaped by mysterious forces beyond our understanding, caught in the fragments of memories, fears or disappointments. Among the countless experiences that life has given me, the idea of God stands out as the most disillusioning. While I can draw comfort from humanity's weaknesses, it remains difficult to reconcile myself with the portrayal of God as presented to me. My only consolation lies in the possibility that among the multitude of religions and faiths that populate our world, none has the ultimate truth and none has the key to understanding the nature of God.”
― Rolf van der Wind

“Our job is to remove the chains that shackle us. The people who make you feel guilty for going against your culture, for going against your religion, all they're saying is: "Look at my chains, they are bigger than yours!”
― Vishen Lakhiani

“Chez les insectes sociaux la stabilité des institutions ne doit à peu près rien à un héritage culturel, mais tout à la transmission génétique. Le comportement social est entièrement inné, automatique.
Chez l'homme les institutions sociales, purement culturelles, ne pourront jamais atteindre à une telle stabilité; qui le souhaiterait d'ailleurs? L'invention des mythes et des religions, la construction de vastes systèmes philosophiques sont le prix que l'homme a dû payer pour survivre en tant qu'animal sociale sans se plier à un pur automatisme. Mais l'héritage purement culturel ne serait pas assez sûr, pas assez puissant à lui seul, pour étayer les structures sociales. Il fallait à cet héritage un support génétique qui en fasse une nourriture exigée par l'esprit. S'il n'en était pas ainsi, comment expliquer l'universalité, dans notre espèce, du phénomène religieux à la base de la structure sociale? Comment expliquer en outre que, dans l'immense diversité des mythes, des religions, ou des idéologies philosophiques, la même 'forme' essentielle se retrouve?”
― Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology

“I once entered a Hindu temple in India, and saw people praying to the fire and throwing papers at it. I asked the local priest why they were doing that, and he said it's a common practice in their religion, Hinduism. I smiled and replied that it has nothing to do with Hindu teachings although it is religious indeed.”
― Dan Desmarques

“Having a bank account in the United States or China won't make any difference as a business owner but people who don't have enough money and time to travel long distances and test the system for themselves, want to believe in illusions. Many banks are actually happy to steal people's money due to their nationality, like they did with Russian people now. And this while the masses consider it to be normal. Imagine if countries stole your money every time your government did something they don't like! Actually they do, which is why your government promises one thing before being elected and then does another. The employees of these governments and big companies are like little Nazis. They will simply repeat: it's the "policy of the company" or "it's the law". Nobody cares to question laws or policies because they think smart people are the ones who obey. Well, you will get nowhere in life by obeying a system that is manipulated against you, which is why so many frustrated people, seeing others in jet planes and traveling the world, are turning to crime and prostitution. This tendency will keep increasing. Yet if I tell people to learn to use a gun, they will say that a spiritual guru would never say such things. Well, I would never trust any guru or religious person who said to me to wait until someone knocks me off with a hammer or that I must accept the misfortunes of life as an opportunity to meditate on karma. As a matter of fact, that's exactly what I got in all religions where I sought answers to this problem, which means even religions have been corrupted by illusions and ignorance. They empower a very toxic demon around these lies called guilt. But this demon is kept alive with dogma.”
― Dan Desmarques

“When I was 15 years old, I came in contact with my first ashram, my first spiritual commune, in the form of Ljusbacken ("The Hill of Light") in Delsbo in beautiful Halsingland in the north of Sweden.
Ljusbacken consisted of an international gathering of yogis, meditators, therapists, healers and seekers of truth. It was on Ljusbacken that I for the first time came in contact with my path in life: meditation. It was also on Ljusbacken that I met people for the first time in my 15 year old life, where I on a deep wordless level felt that I met people, who were on the same path as me. It was the first time that I met people, who could put words on and confirm my own inner thirst after something that I could only occasionally sense vaguely, like some sort of inner guiding presence, or like a beacon in the distant far out on the open and misty ocean. For the first time in my life, I met brothers, sisters and friends on the inner path.
It was also on Ljusbacken that I met the mystery called love for the first time in my 15 year old life. With my 15 year old eyes, I watched with wide eyed fascination and fear filled with excitement the incomprehensible mystery, which is called woman.
My own thirst after truth, together with my inner guiding light, resulted in an early spiritual awakening when I was 15 years old. It led me back to the inner path, which I have already followed for many lives. It led me back to a life lived with vision, with dedication and meaning, and not only a life governed by the endless desires of the ego, a mere vegetating without substance between life and death. It led me to explore the inner journey again, to discover the inner being, the meditative quality within, and to come in intimate contact with the endless and boundless ocean of consciousness, like the drop surrenders to the sea. At the source, the drop and ocean are one.
Devadas, a beautiful soul, whose meditation and way to God is laughter, house father at Ljusbacken, Giten's first ashram in beautiful Hälsingland in the north of Sweden when Giten was 15 years old. says: "Giten does a brilliant job. I am very happy with Giten's work and his satsangs. I must admit that only joy fills my heart when I read Giten's books and see his understanding and commitment.
I suggest joining in to bless Giten's work.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, Meditation: A Love Affair with the Whole - Thousand and One Flowers of Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Freedom, Beauty and the Divine

“Religions cannot be reduced to "belief systems" any more than they can be reduced to "ritual systems." Belief is a part of most religions, but only a part, and in most cases not the most important part.”
― Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter

“There are corrupted Muslims who have become Christians and corrupted Christians who have become Muslims. They called it freedom of religion.”
― Duop Chak Wuol

“The theory of Reincarnation, which originated in India, has been welcomed in other countries. Without doubt, it is one of the most sensible and satisfying of all religions that mankind has conceived.”
― Luther Burbank

“The heart is always young. The heart lives in the moment. It never accumulates the past. It lives in the here and now. 
The mind is always old. The mind accumulates  the past. It goes on accumulating  experiences. It goes on becoming older the more experiences it accumulates. That is why the heart and the mind never are in agreement, because the heart lives in spontaneously in the moment and the mind talks about the past. 
The mind can never know reality, because the past is standing between like a wall. And the wall becomes bigger every day. That is why children are more alive, loving, spontaneous and beautiful than old people. Old people lives in the past and everything spontaneous is impossible for an old man. 
Love give you a feeling of being alive, but marriage is an invention of the mind. Marriage is a poor substitute for love. Marriage is an institution, which is more safe, economic and worldly. The organized religions are also inventions of the mind, and it was mind that crucified Jesus. 
Only the heart can move into meditation. Only the heart is the hope for man: if man moves from the head to the heart, and starts to listento the heart and follow the heart. That is the only hope for man.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, Man is Part of the Whole: Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Compassion, Freedom and Grace

“Thus, although orthodox Buddhists do believe that the religious value of Buddhism surpasses that of other religions, they do not discriminate against other religions or deny their value. If believers of other religions create the conditions for a fortunate rebirth and act constructively, aren’t these people better qualified to be the friends of Buddhism than those scoundrels who destroy human happiness?

Although Buddhists encourage believers of other religions to convert to Buddhism, Buddhists have never ostracized or persecuted other religions. This is clear from the last 2,500-plus years of world history.”
― 聖嚴法師, Orthodox Chinese Buddhism: A Contemporary Chan Master's Answers to Common Questions

“Mankind has spent so much time on the issue of religion, thought and talked so much about religion, spent so much money on religion, fought so many wars in the name of religion, that at this moment in time, humanity is far behind where it should be!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Religions were able to contest the most Nobel side of humanity and overshadow the essence of human dignity, all by creating distinctive yet superficial sectarian barriers that kept humans in a viscous relentless cycle of self-destructive behaviour.”
― Husam Wafaei, Honourable Defection

“We all live in the past. Your parents have given you a certain conditioning. The society has given you a certain conditioning, and to live in that conditioning is to live your life in a prison. The religions have forced you to be a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan or a Buddhist, which are all conditionings. 
Meditation is a freedom from all these conditionings that parents, the society and the religions have forced on you. Unless you are free you will never be able to hear your own authentic inner voice. 
Your parents will tell you "do this and don't do this." The priests will goon creating guilt and shame in you. They will not allow you to be yourself.  Nobody in the world is really interested in anybody else being given the freedom to be himself or herself. Everybody is trying to impose their ideas and ideologies on others.  That is why humanity is in such misery and chaos. 
We have created an ugly world, where we have not allowed children to be themselves.  We have created a prison made of ideas, theologies and ideologies. You can think that you are free, but you are not free. We have to get rid of this prison. We have to uncondition ourselves, sothat we become free. It is first when the whole sky is ours that the whole existence is ours. When one realizes this, one just wants freedom, joy, silence,  awareness, truth and love. In that inner silence and freedom,the whole heritage of humanity becomes ours. Then we know that truth is within ourselves. 
My first book in English, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart, is dedicated to my parents, Essy and Sven, with the dedication: "My parents, who taught me what love and freedom are.” My whole childhood was an atmosphere and climate of love and freedom. An American astrologer said in an astrology  session in the United States that my mother seemed to be a very special  woman. She was so rebellious that the boys in elementary school held herdown and shot her in the foot with an air rifle.  Once when I was in high school, I wanted to  have a little parental conflict, and said to my mother that I would never go back to school again. My mother replied: I would never do that either. This atmosphere and climate of love and freedom made me always feel that I could be who I am. It also taught me early to listen to my inner true voice, which early began to guide me in life.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, Man is Part of the Whole: Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Compassion, Freedom and Grace

“A small puddle will reflect the moon in its own way and the big ocean will reflect it in its own way. Then there is great controversy. Hindus say something, Mohammedans say something else, Christians say something else again – and so on, so forth. The controversy is foolish. The conflict is meaningless. God is reflected in millions of ways, in millions of mirrors. Each mirror reflects in its own way. This is one of the fundamentals to be understood. Not understanding this fundamental there is naturally antagonism between religions, because they all think, “If our standpoint is right then the other has to be wrong.” Their rightness depends on the other’s wrongness. This is stupid. God is infinite, and you can look at him through many ways, through many windows. And naturally you can look at him only through yourself – you will be the window. Your God will reflect God as much as it will reflect you; you will both be there.”
― Rajneesh

“A mere declaration that all religions are good would be a fruitless exercise as we all internally know that this cannot be the case. A more sensible approach would be to actually work towards a truly good religion – a universal religion – through consensus and deliberations and then let that be the ONLY religion sufficient for human beings. [...] each society/individual should be given liberty to fill in minor details as per their own needs, without transgressing the overall framework.”
― Sanjeev Newar, Eternal Religion of Humanity

“Religions are like carwashes. The car may look nice and shiny on the outside, but inside it remains messy and unclean. Why else do you think religious people rape, torture, and murder in the name of their religion?”
― Jack Freestone

“There is Something, the Being, and this Being cannot be denied empirically or theoretically and cannot be challenged by skepticism. It would also be hard to deny that the Being (Universe) may be God himself (Itself), theoretically or hypothetically. If, for a moment, we forget the idea of intelligent design or the idea of a benevolent God or any God as presented by religions, and even if we forget the idea of a God who creates the world (Creator-God), we can still think of a God who recreates himself in the form of the Universe.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“In religions, the idea often takes the subject's place. The idea becomes the subject itself. Since this is impossible, human words are used as the words of “God,” which serves as “proof” that God said them. In this way, human words, sold as God’s words, cannot be questioned and are “proof” of God’s existence. That’s the idea that takes the place of the subject.

Everything would be easier if this were the only problem relating to God and philosophical inquiries about God. The problem is much more complicated because wherever we turn, we either find logical fallacies, misusage of language, or inadequate comparisons to try to make a statement, to try to oppose and deny the other side's argument and prove the “truth,” which usually turns out only to be our “truth,” our view and not the objective truth. We can find this among believers, atheists, and agnostics when the idea avoids or bypasses the subject in a real sense.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“Since God is not a subject of which we can have tangible evidence through direct experience, or at least, we think there is no clear and direct experience, and we are mainly dealing with our ideas about God and not God himself. Based on our thoughts, God can be many different things to different people. In Judeo-Christian, theistic tradition, God is the creator of the world from nothing—creatio ex nihilo. In this view, God is not its creation.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“When we ask somebody if they believe in God, we expect them to believe or not in what we think our idea of God is. But what if God is not what we think it is? Many believe that some undetectable higher Force they do not understand governs the Universe. This kind of belief is more rational because there is something they believe in, but religious books do not describe it.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“God is not what our idea of “It” is. There is no religious book that offers a satisfying picture of God. Nevertheless, if we think of God as a force, even atheists may agree (if not now, then perhaps in the future) that there is a unifying force in everything. That force is the Absolute, whereas the Being responsible for creating motion, energy, and “material world” is the force we may call God, the Ultimate Being, Ultimate Force, or Universal Mind (Spirit). Still, the world is not only the product of its creator but is the creator itself in a different mode of existence.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“For Milesian philosophers Thales (c. 626/623—c. 548/545 BC), Anaximander (c. 610—c. 546 BC), and Anaximenes (c. 586/585—c. 526/525 BC) there was an ultimate principle they called arche. For Thales, this ultimate principle from which everything originated was water; for Anaximenes, it was air; and for Anaximander, it was Apeiron (limitless), whereas, for the Pythagoreans, the number was the ultimate principle.

For Heraclitus (c. 540—c. 480), arche was fire from which everything originated, but Logos was the ultimate principle uniting everything and connecting opposites.

For Anaxagora (c. 500—c. 428 BC), a hundred years after the Milesians, the ultimate principle was the mind (nous), which is limitless because it is not material.”
― Dejan Stojanovic