This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
Every dictator uses religion as a prop to keep himself in power.
Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome.
Esteem | Principles | Religion |
If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have nothing in it mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.
If you identify the Absolute with God, that is not the God of religion. If again you separate them, God become s finite factor in the Whole. And the effort of religion is put an end to, and break down, this relation - a relation which, none the less, it essentially presupposes. Hence, short of the Absolute, God cannot rest, and having reached that goal, he is lost and religion with him.
If we subject everything to reason, our religion will have nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.
Men despise religion; they hate it and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true. Venerable, because it has perfect knowledge of man; lovable because it promises the true good.
Despise | Fear | Good | Hate | Hope | Knowledge | Man | Men | Reason | Religion | Respect | Respect |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
We are now again in an epoch of wars of religion, but a religion is now called an "ideology."
Religion |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won because people have ceased to consider religion so important as it was once thought to be.
Important | People | Religion | Thought | Toleration | Thought |
Religion is suited to all kinds of minds. Some pay attention only to its establishment, and this religion is such that its very establishment suffices to prove its truth. Others trace it even to the apostles. The more learned go back to the beginning of the world. The angels see it better still, and from a more distant time.
Angels | Attention | Beginning | Better | Religion | Time | Truth | World |
Yoga is not a philosophy though its practice will lead the way to a life that is philosophical. It is not a religion and it is not confined to any particular creed or dogma. There is no "instant Nirvana"...or instant ANYthing. One works hard for what one gets out of Yogic studies.
Creed | Dogma | Life | Life | Philosophy | Practice | Religion | Will |
Religion has treated knowledge sometimes as an enemy, sometimes as an hostage; often as a captive and more often as a child; but knowledge has become of age, and religion must either renounce her acquaintance, or introduce her as a companion and respect her as a friend.
Acquaintance | Age | Enemy | Friend | Knowledge | Religion | Respect | Respect |
Where true religion has prevented one crime, false religions have afforded a pretext for a thousand.
Chief Seattle, also spelled Seathl
There is little in common between us. The ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their final resting place is hallowed ground, while you wander away from the tombs of your fathers without regret. Your religion was written on tablets of stone by the iron finger of an angry God, lest you might forget it. The red man could never remember nor comprehend it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors, the dreams of our old men, given them by the Great Spirit, and the visions of our sachems [chiefs], and is written in the hearts of our people. Your dead cease to love you and the homes of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb. They wander far off beyond the stars, are soon forgotten, and never return. Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its winding rivers, its great mountains, and its sequestered vales.
Dreams | God | Little | Love | Man | Men | People | Regret | Religion | Sacred | Spirit | World | Old |