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29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / a. Religious Belief

[nature of belief in a conscious supernatural reality]

30 ideas
Charity and ritual observance distract from the highest good of religion [Anon (Upan)]
In their ignorance people pray to statues, which is like talking to a house [Heraclitus]
If god answered prayers we would be destroyed, because we pray for others to suffer [Epicurus]
No one will ever find a city that lacks religious practices [Plutarch]
If you love the world, then you do not love the Father [John]
Religion is built on ignorance and misinterpretation of what is unknown or frightening [Hobbes]
Prayers are useful, because God foresaw them in his great plan [Leibniz]
Religion needs an intermediary, because none of us can connect directly to a godhead [Novalis]
To have pagan beliefs and be a pagan are quite different [Hegel]
Some religions lead to harsh servitude and the debasement of human beings [Hegel]
Only religion introduces serious issues to uneducated people [Schopenhauer]
Religion is the mythical clothing of the truth which is inaccessible to the crude human intellect [Schopenhauer]
Religion is the consciousness of the infinite [Feuerbach]
Today's atheism will tomorrow become a religion [Feuerbach]
Absolute idealism is the realized divine mind of Leibnizian theism [Feuerbach]
Religion is the opium of the people, and real happiness requires its abolition [Marx]
Religious feeling is social in origin [Marx]
The truly great haters in world history have always been priests [Nietzsche]
Religion is tempting if your life is boring, but you can't therefore impose it on the busy people [Nietzsche]
We should try attaching the intensity of religious devotion to intelligent social action [Dewey]
Religions are so shockingly diverse that they have no common element [Dewey]
Religion sees infinite value in some things, and irrelevance in the rest [Bell,C]
Religion should quietly suffuse all human life with its light [Weil]
When man abandons religion, he then follows new fake gods and mythologies [Cioran]
A religion needs to motivate killings, and cannot tolerate rivals [Cioran]
It is estimated that mankind has produced 100,000 religions [Wilson,EO]
The God of religion results from an encounter, not from a proof [Badiou]
The great religions are much more concerned with the religious life than with ethics [Graham]
Religion gives answers, comforts, creates social order, and panders to superstition [Grayling]
The three basic ingredients of religion are: the soul, seers or priests, and ritual [Watson]