I just think of myself as a comedian, really. I mean, I talk about being Jewish a lot. It’s funny because I do think of myself as Jewish ethnically, but I’m not religious at all. I have no religion.
I am not particularly religious. But I think we do face the question of where God is, why we are created and where does life go, why we exist. That sort of thing. And it is very hard to talk about it these days, because it cannot be proven. It is hard to discuss it rationally.
I don’t believe in angels, and I’m not a religious person.
Oh, I don’t have any religious beliefs.
I love the ACLU and I’m concerned now, especially when it comes to our rights, with current politics and the religious community and the Conservative majority or minority – I don’t know who they are.
There are still forces in America that want to divide us along racial lines, religious lines, sex, class. But we’ve come too far; we’ve made too much progress to stop or to pull back. We must go forward. And I believe we will get there.
I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.
I don’t think religious groups should be allowed to apply for federal funds to start new ministries they have not been doing before the funding was available.
I always tell people that religious institutions and political institutions should be separate. So while I’m telling people this, I myself continue with them combined. Hypocrisy!
With regard to the moral and religious condition of the slaves, I cannot, either from what I observe, or from what is told me, consider it in any way gratifying.
Judaism is much more communal, and partly as a consequence of my religious switch, I am increasingly more suspicous of my previous view that what people do in the privacy of their own home is their business alone.
While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing – good for our political culture.
Whether one believes or not, religion is as real a force in the life of the world as economics or politics, and it demands fair-minded attention. Even if you think the entire religious enterprise is at best misguided and at worst counterproductive, it remains vital, inspiring great good and, sometimes, great evil.
Y2K has challenged a belief in digital technology that has been almost religious.
My main concern is meeting with public because my main commitment, main interest is promotion of human value, human affection, compassion and religious harmony.
Gay marriage is the last bastion of, to me… as a legal, ceremonial, sentimental and religious side, it’s one of the last steps. Retaining your job being one of the earlier steps, like, not getting kicked out of your job because you’re gay.
Our society is the product of several great religious and philosophical traditions. The ideas of the Greeks and Romans, Christianity, Judaism, humanism and the Enlightenment have made us who we are.
The trend of all knowledge at the present is to specialize, but archaeology has in it all the qualities that call for the wide view of the human race, of its growth from the savage to the civilized, which is seen in all stages of social and religious development.
I also found that for myself, since I’ve had no religious education, it was so interesting to see the different versions of heaven and what life on earth means.
Contrary to all the blather we here about the unique goodness of the American people or our religious heritage or anything else, the one thing that set this country apart from all others was the Bill of Rights.
The United States may be a religious nation. But it is also a nation with a strong commitment to separation of church and state.
There are many different rivers that lead into despair: there’s poverty; there’s political repression; there’s gender apartheid – there’s a sense of culture loss; there’s religious fanaticism.
We can trust our doctors to be professional, to minister equally to their patients without regard to their political or religious beliefs. But we can no longer trust our professors to do the same.
Perhaps we don’t need these religious concoctions to pillow the fear of death. Just the fact that there is an unknown, and something greater, can bring a feeling of peace. That’s enough for me.
And if a person is religious, I think it’s good, it helps you a bit. But if you’re not, at least you can have the sense that there is a condition inside you which looks at the stars with amazement and awe.
To seduce a woman famous for strict morals, religious fervor and the happiness of her marriage: what could possibly be more prestigious?
I was aware of it, but I grew up in a very a-religious family. My mother never went to church, she never had any religious training or background. It was never a part of our social interaction.
Whenever there is a catastrophe, some religious people inevitably ask, ‘Why didn’t God do something? Where was God when all those people died?’
I’m not super, super religious. If this is okay to say, I’m more culturally Jewish.
Man is the religious animal. He is the only one that’s got true religion, several of them.
We’re not at a point in time to be taking chances with children and young people in the church. The Holy Father himself said… there is no room in the priesthood or religious life for someone who has abused a child. I think he’s right.
I don’t know of many evangelicals who want to deny gay couples their legal rights. However, most of us don’t want to call it marriage, because we think that word has religious connotations, and we’re not ready to see it used in ways that offend us.
The Pilgrims were unified by their religious zeal, but they couldn’t fish, they didn’t know how to hunt, and they were bad at farming. In fact, they never had a good harvest until they learned to fish cod and plow the waste in the ground as fertilizer.
Work is a substitute religious experience for many workaholics.
I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
It’s just better to promote love and fairness and equality than it is to promote something you think is based on your religious beliefs.
Marriage is a religious and state issue.
Tolkien was quite a religious man, and so is George R.R. Martin. They kind of have this epic quality about them when they write the material.
I’m a religious man. I pray for Milky Way.
I was raised into the Romanian Orthodox culture by my parents, and most notably my mother, who is a profoundly religious and spiritual woman.
Both French and Latin are involved with nationalistic and religious implications which could not be entirely shaken off, and so, while they seemed for a long time to have solved the international language problem up to a certain point, they did not really do so in spirit.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest pleasure; but if we cultivate it only for pleasure’s sake, we are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because we can never have the virtue.
I am not religious in any way, but I have a pagan ideology and pagan values.
What the printing press is to Christianity in the 16th century, that’s what the Internet is doing to Islam now. It has opened up the monopoly over the interpretation of Islam that used to solely belong to the religious class.
However, I think the major opposition to ecology has deeper roots than mere economics; ecology threatens widely held values so fundamental that they must be called religious.
Maybe Elvis was inhibited by inbred religious prohibitions or an Oedipal complex, or maybe he simply preferred the thrill of a denied release. Whatever put the brakes on the famous pelvis, it ground to a halt at a certain point, and that was it.
In American religious history, theological qualms tend to get pushed aside when politics intervenes.
The passion for art is, as for believers, very religious. It unites people, its message is of common humanity. Art has become my religion – others pray in church. It’s a banality, but you don’t possess art, it possesses you. It’s like falling in love.
Certainly I’m a Christian first and foremost. But I do believe in religious tolerance and finding the commonality between all of us. I think that’s how we’re all going to come together.
I’ve been an atheist since I was nine years old. And my mom is really religious, so we have a strange relationship. But if my mother was right, what would be the reason that the gods could let anything bad happen in the world?
We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It’s about conflicts between creation stories.
This is appalling. The idea that a person could be punished because of their religious belief and the idea they might be executed is just beyond belief.
The devil put before me that I could not endure the trials of the religious life, because of my delicate nurture. I defended myself against him by alleging the trials which Christ endured, and that it was not much for me to suffer something for His sake; besides, He would help me to bear it.
