Secular Society Quotes

• The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Faith, Spiritual, Religious

  Benjamin Franklin (1987). “Poor Richard's Almanack: Being the Choicest Morsels of Wisdom, Written During the Years of the Almanack's Publication”, p.16, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

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• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

  James Madison

  Exercise, Law, Religion

  Virginia. General Assembly. House of Delegates, J. W. Randolph, James Madison (1850). “The Virginia Report of 1799-1800: Touching the Alien and Sedition Laws; Together with the Virginia Resolutions of December 21, 1798, Including the Debate and Proceedings Thereon in the House of Delegates of Virginia and Other Documents Illustrative of the Report and Resolutions”, p.136

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• A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

  Albert Einstein

  Sympathy, God, Death

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.39, Broadway Books

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• I can't tell Black people to fight a war that is Israel's war. What kind of leader will you be, or should I be, to allow these babies Black, white and brown, to fight Israel's war, because Zionists dominate the government of the United States of America and her banking system.

  Louis Farrakhan

  Baby, Religious, War

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• As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, - as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

  John Adams

  Christian, Religious, Atheist

  "Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Signed at Tripoli". The Barbary Treaties 1786-1816, avalon.law.yale.edu. November 04, 1796.

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• There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages.

  Ruth Hurmence Green

  Atheist, Fear, Dark

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• The Church says the Earth is flat. But I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Motivational, Death, Faith

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• If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern!

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spiritual, Communication, Would Be

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.75, A&C Black

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• Religions are all alike- founded upon fables and mythologies.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Faith Religion

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• Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Spiritual, Religious, Atheist

  James C. Humes, Benjamin Franklin (1995). “The wit and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: a treasury of more than 900 quotations and anecdotes”, Harpercollins

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• Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

  James Madison

  Religious, Atheist, Faith Religion

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.328, Princeton University Press

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• The public school has become the established church of secular society.

  Ivan Illich

  Education, School, Church

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• The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion.

  Ulrich Beck

  Overcoming, Assumption, Modernity

  "Risky business" by Stuart Jeffries, www.theguardian.com. February 11, 2006.

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• Religion says earn your life. Secular society says create your life. Jesus says, 'My life for your life.

  Timothy Keller

  Life, Faith, Christian

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• In our secular society, school has become the replacement for church, and like church it requires that its teachings must be taken on faith.

  John Taylor Gatto

  Teaching, Taken, School

  John Taylor Gatto, Thomas Moore (2013). “Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling”, p.28, New Society Publishers

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• The Soviet Union began by banishing God. The United States began as a community of people who wanted to worship God as they chose. . . Man does not live by bread alone. Those in the United States whose desire to create a strictly secular society is as strong as Lenin's was should study this Cold War lesson closely. Communism was defeated by an alliance spearheaded by 'one nation under God.'

  Richard M. Nixon

  Strong, War, Men

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• Where are the vehicles to character development in secular society?

  Dennis Prager

  Character, Development, Vehicle

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• Britain, relative to the U.S., is a highly secular society. Philanthropy alone cannot fill the gap left by government cutbacks. And the sources of altruism go deep into our evolutionary past.

  Jonathan Sacks

  Past, Government, Gaps

  "Celebrating Faith, Altruism And Our Modern Community" by Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 5, 2011.

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• We are presented with an unpleasant choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle or just charming rituals for which we struggle to find equivalents in secular society.

  Alain de Botton

  Letting Go, Struggle, Choices

  "Katie Antoniou interviews Alain de Botton on his new book 'Religion for Atheists'". Interview with Katie Antoniou, www.run-riot.com. January 24, 2012.

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• n our increasingly secular society, with so many disparate gods and different faiths, superhero films present a unique canvas upon which our shared hopes, dreams and apocalyptic nightmares can be projected and played out.

  Tom Hiddleston

  Dream, Unique, Superhero

  "Superheroes movies like Avengers Assemble should not be scorned" by Tom Hiddleston, www.theguardian.com. April 19, 2012.

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• A church has the right to set its own standards within its community. I don't think it has a right to prohibit birth control or to enforce upon a secular society its conception of divorce and the indissolubility of the marriage tie.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Divorce, Thinking, Ties

  "The Mike Wallace Interview". www.hrc.utexas.edu. April 27, 1958.

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• Within the field of a secular society, which is a sort of neutral frame that allows individuals to develop their own lives, so long as they don't annoy their neighbors too much, each of us has an individual myth that's driving us, which we may or may not know.

  Joseph Campbell

  Long, May, Too Much

  Joseph Campbell (2009). “Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation: Easyread Large Edition”, p.145, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• It's been so long now and so much has happened that I am able now to look back with much less emotion and my take on Andy as an artist now comes down to a simple sentence: he made religious art for a secular society which is why it has so much appeal.

  Bob Colacello

  Religious, Art, Simple

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• The demand that Islam makes of women is to not attract attention to yourself, and if you are in a secular society, that attire does exactly that, and it is a political symbol, no longer religious.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Religious, Political, Islam

  "The Interview: Ayaan Hirsi Ali on reforming Islam". Interview with Brian Bethune, www.macleans.ca. April 13, 2015.

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