A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.
-Alan Wilson Watts
Quotations
Religion
Religious gurus are managing their businesses by misleading the world, but
it is a smaller crime. Their greater crime is; not only are they suppressing the
qualities and philosophies of great people, but are also running their businesses
by linking them to useless miracles.
-Deep Trivedi
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anything but himself.
-Richard Francis Burton
There are many things which are difficult for any wise man to understand... Like
the rewards that are bestowed by God in heaven on performing good deeds; the
same when done here are condemned by the religious heads, but then who are
they to condemn it?
-Deep Trivedi
Perhaps not one religion contains all of the truth of the world. Perhaps every religion contains fragments of the truth, and it is our responsibility to identify those fragments and piece them together.
-Christopher Paolini
"Brisingr"
Why did the intelligent people of the world lose interest in religion? Because
instead of the talks and teachings of Buddha, Jesus and Krishna, they were
presented with the Bible and Vedas concocted by the religious gurus.
-Deep Trivedi
One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.
-Richard Dawkins
"The God Delusion"
The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender’s inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for everyone else the proper pleasure of ritual.
-C. S. Lewis "C. S. Lewis"
Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive Unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness — an act of trust in the unknown.
-Alan Watts
Religious people fear hell -- Spiritual people have walked through it.
-Frank Warren
"PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God"
