There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.īut in terms of how people live together, how we minimize the prospects of conflict and maximize the prospects of peace, the place of religion in our society today is essential. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. It’s simply untrue that religion provides the only framework for a universal morality. I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.Įvery dictator uses religion as a prop to keep himself in power. If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. I ask you to pray for me, for once age has overtaken us, we find consolation only in religion. The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion. God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.

Religion without humanity is a poor human stuff.

Science and religion conflict quotes