Quotes On Religion For An Easter Sunday

Since today is Easter Sunday, the most important religious holiday in America for christians, I thought it would be a good time to review some thoughts on religion from some famous people. Some of you may consider christmas to be the most important religious holiday, but christmas is celebrated as a secular holiday by millions who have no religion or believe in a non-christian religion. Easter is not. It is purely a religious holiday.

Here are some quotes that will hopefully give you some food for thought:

"I like your Christ, I do not like your christians. Your christians are so unlike your Christ." - Gandhi

"I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her." - Arthur C. Clarke

"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs." - Frederick Douglass

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane." - Robert Green Ingersoll

"If I had been the Virgin Mary, I would have said 'No'." - Margaret Smith

"If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god." - Napoleon Bonaparte

"Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God." - Albert Einstein

"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means." - George Bernard Shaw

"One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." - Robert A. Heinlein

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." - Napoleon Bonaparte

"Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand." - Frederick II

"The Bible is literature, not dogma." - George Santayana

"The christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness." - Dalai Lama

"We are punished by our sins, not for them." - Elbert Hubbard

"When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out." - Frank Sinatra

"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land." - Desmond Tutu

"You can safely assume you've created god in your own image when it turns out that god hates all the same people that you do."

I am an atheist. However I respect the right of every person to worship or not as he/she pleases. The search for religion (or the denial of it) is a personal journey, and each person should be allowed to conduct that journey on their own terms and in their own way. Evil does not enter the picture until someone tries to force their own religion on others through coercion, fear or law. Believe as you will -- just grant that same right to all others.