Tao Te Ching
Religion
In 5th century BCE Greece—if not before—the idea of religion being a way for governments to control their populations was discussed. A disciple of Socrates, Critias proposed that the idea of rewards and punishments in a future life was invented by politicians to ensure obedience when their soldiers and police couldn’t watch. In the next century, Aristotle echoed this view but added more about its benefit in securing the “public good.” In the 2nd century BCE, the historian Polybius went further asserting that the Roman civilization became so great because of its foundation on religious superstition. In more modern times, Marx and Engles carried forward this view in a vivid but strident, rigid style that seemed religious itself.
Political corruptions aside, the calls to a religious view seem to have a deep, primal, possibly genetic attraction capable of seducing even the most scientific, rational minds into narrow, obsessive and creativity-enslaving beliefs. But when not constrained by dogmatic concepts and irrational commandments, a religious approach that follows the sense and not just the words of a tradition becomes capable of opening doors into the sacred meaningfulness of life, the depths of true happiness, and the treasures of compassion.
Quotes (170)
“Lord, my mind is not noisy with desires, and my heart has satisfied its longing. I do not care about religion or anything that is not you.”
“The ancients heard thunder, saw lightning, conjunctions of the stars, eclipses of the Sun and Moon, became afraid, and began believing in gods to explain what they couldn’t understand.”
“Myths—because of their utility in regard to social customs and the public good—were introduced to persuade the multitude.”
“Whoever praises his own religion, due to excessive devotion, and condemns others with the thought 'Let me glorify my own religion,' only harms his own religion. Therefore contact (between religions) is good. One should listen to and respect the doctrines professed by others.”
“All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher.”
“When human life laid prostrate on the earth crushed down under the weight of religion, Epicurus found the living source of his soul and passed far beyond the flaming walls of convention finding the wonders of mind, the spirit of the immeasurable universe in turn putting under foot and trampling down on religion.”
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
“Whether a person remains deluded or gains Illumination depends upon themself, not upon differences or similarity of doctrine.”
“The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.”
“If the believer understood the meaning of the saying 'the color of the water is the color of the receptacle', he would admit the validity of all beliefs and he would recognize God in every form and every object of faith.”
“Religion is the most necessary and assured support of any civil society... there never was a successful lawgiver who did not resort to divine authority, as otherwise his laws would not have been accepted by the people.”
“Religion is the most mysterious thing and one about which one should keep silent... it would be an offense to religion to confide it to the profane multitude.”
“Religious in mine error, I adore the sun, that looks upon his worshipper, but knows of him no more.”
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
“Men despise religion; they hate it, and fear it is true... we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true.”
“The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.”
“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”
“For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight;
He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.”
“Religion is not a restraint; on the contrary it is an encouragement to crime. Every religion is based on expiations.”
“posterity is for the philosopher what the 'other world' is for the man of religion”
“Religion can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence. Therefore it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.”
“Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system.”
“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.”
“Modes of worship in the Roman world were considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.”
“In every country in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own.”
“When will Mankind be convinced that true Religion is from the Heart, between Man and his creator, and not the imposition of Man or creeds and tests?”
“In no instance has a system in regard to religion been ever established, but for the purpose, as well as with the effect of its being made an instrument of intimidation, corruption, and delusion, for the support of depredation and oppression in the hands of government.”
“Whenever philosophy has taken religion into its plan, it has ended in skepticism; and whenever religion excludes philosophy or the spirit of free inquiry, it leads to wilful blindness and superstition.”
“Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.”
“Religions are the children of ignorance and do not long survive their mother... Mankind is growing out of religion as out of its childhood clothes.”
“The bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it.”
“Love is a religion, and its rituals cost more than those of other religions. It goes by quickly and, like a street urchin, it likes to mark its passage by a trail of devastation.”
“poetry will take a great step, a decisive step, a step which, like the upheaval of an earthquake, will change the whole face of the intellectual world. It will set about doing as nature does, mingling in its creations—but without confounding them—darkness and light, the grotesque and the sublime; in other words, the body and the soul, the beast and the intellect; for the starting-point of religion is always the starting-point of poetry. All things are connected.”
“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.”
“Religion is a collective insanity. It has always sanctified violence and transformed it into 'right.' It has whisked away humanity, justice, and fraternity into a fictitious heaven, so as to leave room on earth for the reign of iniquity and brutality.”
“Truths for a new day:
1. The oneness of mankind
2. The foundation of all religion is one
3. Religion must be in accord with science and reason”
“Religion is the soul of soulless conditions, the heart of a heartless world, the sigh of the oppressed, the feeling of a heartless world, the spirit of unspiritual conditions, the opium of the people.”
“Religion is but the false sun that revolves around those who are not fully aware… it is the sigh of the oppressed, the kindliness of a heartless world, the soul of soulless circumstance, the opiate of the people.”
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.”
“all men needed the bridle of religion, which, properly speaking, was the dread of a Hereafter”
“But when a man's religion becomes really fanatic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of our an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.”
“All religion is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces.”
“The great enemy of civilization is the notion that society cannot prosper, unless the affairs of life are watched over and protected at nearly every turn by the state and the church.”
“As long as man remains free, he stries for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.”
“Eternal truths survive the shock of empires, outlive the struggles of rival creeds, and witness the decay of successive religions.”
“Since the beginning of time, the craving for community of worship remains as the main cause of our suffering. For that we’ve killed and tortured each other, said ‘Put away your gods and worship ours or we will kill you and your gods.’”
“by combining science with religion, the existence of God and immortality of man's spirit may be demonstrated.”
“The origin of all religions—Judaeo-Christianity included—is to be found in a few primeval truths, not one of which can be explained apart from all the others, as each is a complement of the rest in some one detail. And they are all, more or less, broken rays of the same Sun of truth”
“Liberty, next to religion, has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime... beset by its natural enemies: ignorance, superstition, lust of conquest, love of ease, craving for power”
“You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?”
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
“A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.”
“I find the nicest and best people generally profess no religion at all, but are ready to like the best men of all religions.”
“It is here that almost all religions go wrong... forgetting that while to deny the existence of an unseen kingdom is bad, to pretend that we know more about it than its bare existence is no better.”
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”
“Religion, in short, is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.”
“There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.”
“Churches are suffered to exist only on condition that they preach submission to the State as at present capitalistically organized.”
“The derivation of a need for religion from the child's feeling of helplessness and the longing it evokes for a father seems to me incontrovertible... [and] kept alive perpetually by the fear of what the superior power of fate will bring.”
“What is your ‘civilization and progress‘ if its only outcome is hysteria and down going? What is ‘government and law‘ if their ripened harvests are men without sap? What are ‘religions and literatures‘ if their grandest productions are hordes of faithful slaves?”
“Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.”
“Have not some religions, including the most influential forms of Christianity, taught that the heart of man is totally corrupt? [For this reason] how could the course of religion in its entire sweep not be marked by practices that are shameful in their cruelty and lustfulness, and by beliefs that are degraded and intellectually incredible?”
“For Shakespeare, in the matter of religion, the choice lay between Christianity and nothing. He chose nothing.”
“The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature, to have faith in yourself.”
“All the main religions, patriotic, moral and customary systems in which human beings are sheltering today, appear to be in a state of jostling and mutually destructive movement, like the houses and palaces and other buildings of some vast, sprawling city overtaken by a landslide.”
“Religion is a disease born of fear and a source of untold misery to the human race.”
“People attempted to tame whatever animal their religion taught them to worship. The tribes that worshiped lions and crocodiles died out, while those to whom the cow or the sheep was a sacred animal prospered.”
“Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy.”
“Our true religion is a monotheism of consciousness, a possession by it, with a fanatical denial of the existence of autonomous partial-systems… This leads to collective delusions, instigations to war and revolution, in a word, to destructive mass psychoses… this narrowness of consciousness is always the shortest way to the insane asylum.”
“In view of its function, religion stands in greater need of a rational foundation of its ultimate principles than even the dogmas of science.”
“The opposition of religion to folklore is often a kind of rivalry set up as between a new dispensation and an older tradition, the gods of the older cult becoming the evil spirits of the newer”
“I didn't know that being religious meant health and cheerfulness.”
“Like the goal of art is the search for beauty, the goal of religion is the search for God and truth.”
“I don't like religion much, and I am glad that in the Bible the word is not to be found.”
“A religion contradicting science and a science contradicting religion are equally false.”
“My religion consists in a humble awe before the higher reality that reveals itself in the smallest details”
“She thought there were no Gods; no one was to blame; and so she evolved this atheist's religion of doing good for the sake of goodness.”
“Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion… that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful… whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler… that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting, and farewells him with hooting, only to welcome another with trumpeting again.”
“Is not religion all deeds and all reflection... a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul?”
“Oh, how crafty of religion, I cried out indignantly, to transplant rewards and punishments into a future life in order to comfort cowards and the enslaved and aggrieved, enabling them to bow their necks patiently before their masters, and to endure this earthly life”
“In a society where government, law, and morality are bound up with a religious creed, any attack upon that creed is viewed as menacing the foundation of social order itself.”
“As education spreads, theologies lose credence, and receive an external conformity without influence upon conduct or hope”
“We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.”
“religious in the only way that is becoming—extracting the utmost of life from every passing minute.”
“The sovereignty of scriptures of all religions must come to an end if we want to have a united integrated modern India.”
“It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.”
“It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.”
“In religion all words are dirty words. Anybody who gets eloquent about Buddha, or God, or Christ, ought to have his mouth washed out with carbolic soap.”
“Given the nature of spiders, webs are inevitable. And given the nature of human beings, so are religions. Spiders can't help making fly-traps, and men can't help making symbols. That's what the human brain is there for - to turn the chaos of given experience into a set of manageable symbols.”
“When philosophy becomes colored with emotion and teaches a reverent attitude toward the universe, it becomes religion.”
“Religion is the frozen thought of mankind out of which they build temples.”
“Neither your gods, nor your science can save you, can bring you psychological certainty; and you have to accept that you can trust in absolutely nothing.”
“All the present bureaucracies of political governments, great religious organizations, and all big businesses find that physical success for all humanity would be devastating to the perpetuation of their ongoing activities.”
“religious, political, personal… symbols, ideas, beliefs… are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man in every relationship.”
“While theistic religions are based on authority and dogma, non-theistic religions like Taoism and Buddhism are based on self-responsibility and universality. The highest good is found n the lowest places; therefore it is compared to water.”
“The jewel has facets and it is possible that many religions are moderately true.”
“Religion: What at one time was a dynamic structure, mediating between man an his destiny and interpersonal responsibilities, has become mere mechanical ritual that dwarfs men rather than strengthening them.”
“organized religion... goes back to myths which, though they may have a kernel of truth, are untrue. Why then should the Jewish myth be true and the Indian and Egyptian myths not be true?”
“Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck to its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.”
“I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril.”
“I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril.”
“We must convert religion to religion that transcends religion, return philosophy to its original purity, and replace science with a science that rejects modern science.”
“I think it matters almost infinitely that we practice one of the authentic religions. But if you mean does it make any difference which, the answer is no.”
“It is commonly said and known that each civilization has its own religion. Now my claim is that if we look deeper, the different civilizations were brought into being by the different revelations.”
“If we take the world's enduring religions at their best, we discover the distilled wisdom of the human race.”
“God has to speak to each person in their own language, in their own idioms. Take Spanish, Chinese. You can express the same thought, but to different people you have to use a different language. Its the same in religion.”
“Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different”
“In the realm of religion, we can look forward to ecumenical dissolution of sects, dogmas, and superstitions since they create a tiro mortis of the mind, emotions and spirit.”
“Religions appear to be schismatic technical harangues, corruptions of some original pure Vision”
“There is an inner core common to all religions: the universal teachings of morality and charity, of a disciplined and pure mind full of love, compassion, goodwill and tolerance.”
“Many a time we ease ourselves into convenient clichés and… once more we are trapped by habits that are the dunghills upon which the creeds feed.”
“Once a great conception, philosophy, or system of thought is turned into a religion, the original thought dies off.”
“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.”
“No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”
“My religion is humanitarianism, which is the basis of every religion in the world.”
“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.”
“Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.”
“Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.”
“Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.”
“Science is not always positive. How many lives were lost from nuclear weapons, and how much energy was lost that could have gone toward the development of countries instead of their destruction? It is unnecessary to believe in developing only in a scientific way. It is also unnecessary to be against the idea of a spiritual path, because those who follow a spiritual path and develop spiritual qualities can help to create peace in the world.”
“no act is evil in itself; man puts the evil into it by the motive with which he commits it... Evil cannot coexist without the striving to 'live more abundantly' which is the ultimate aim of religion.”
“Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.”
“if religion is at its core so antithetical to belief, why does it happen that belief systems gather so persistently around genuine religious expression?... What is it about religion that causes believers to reject it?... whenever we turn to religion for answers, instead of answers we are offered a deepened expression of the same question.”
“Opinions and beliefs can be helpful... as long as we don't believe them”
“To me there's no real difference between a fortune teller or a fortune cookie and any of the organized religions. They're all equally valid or invalid, really. And equally helpful.”
“The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.”
“In general, people speak as if there is a kind of religion created by Buddha Shakyamuni. That is not a correct point of view. Buddha never created any kind of school or religion.”
“Universally—in all traditions and schools of thought, religions, philosophies, political theories—there's always a conflict about how to relate the imaginary world to the physical world.”
“Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV, and you think you're so clever and classless and free… A working class hero is something to be.”
“Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do - nothing to kill or die for, no religions too.”
“All religions are branches of one big tree. It doesn't matter what you call Him just as long as you call.”
“Religion isn't about believing things. It's about what you do. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.”
“Politics and church are the same. They keep the people in ignorance.”
“Along with the lust for power, religion and spirituality are the most profound motivators in human history.”
“Religion—a medieval form of unreason—when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms… ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.”
“Market capitalism has already become the most successful religion of all time, winning more converts more quickly than any previous belief or value system in human history.”
“Financial dealings have become a religious activity... People worship capital, adore its aura, genuflect before Porsches and land values”
“the excruciating ache of the awakening love for wisdom… the sacred origin not just of religion but also everything else, of science, technology, education, law, medicine, logic architecture, ordinary daily life”
“Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all… places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world. Never a word of it is literally true.”
“All religions are based upon principles that constitute an ethical way of life. Our current lifestyle does not uphold the human spirit and does not support an ethical way of living. In response, religions around the world must advance a strong spiritual approach to climate change.”
“Religion is one of the most perverse misuses of intelligence we have ever devised.”
“The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true.”
“What matters is abuse, and how it is anchored in a religion that denies women their rights as humans. What matters is that atrocities against women and children are carried out in Europe. What matters is that governments and societies must stop hiding behind a hollow pretense of tolerance so that they can recognize and deal with the problem.”
“"If you could reason with religious people, there wouldn’t be any religious people."”
“[Capitalist–consumerism] is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do... most people today successfully live up to this ideal... the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more.”
“religion is often considered a source of discrimination, disagreement and disunion. Yet in fact, religion has been the third great unifier of humankind, alongside money and empires... Religions assert that our laws are not the result of human caprice... thereby ensuring social stability.”
“In the 21st century, religion's promise of eternal life in heaven has been supplanted by science and technology's promise of an eternally rising standard of living on earth.”
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