Quotes About Religious Diversity

#1. Malaysia is a country unlike any other: Full of promise and fragility. Its history, cultural and religious diversity make it a rich, compelling and surprising land.

Tariq Ramadan

#2. Whatever his private beliefs and religious practice, a president must be the guardian of the laws which ensure America's religious diversity.

Walter F. Mondale

#3. If you chose a particular religion, you were siding with the government religion of whatever region you were in. That's never been true in America, but also, the United States also has so many more immigrant groups which also tends to imply more religious diversity right away.

Susan Jacoby

#4. From the beginning, the Continental Congress had official chaplains, prayers, and days of fasting and Thanksgiving. When sessions opened in 1774, fear was voiced that the religious diversity of the country would make it hard to choose a form of worship.

M. Stanton Evans

#5. Religion doesn't divide the society. The humans reading the wrong books to understand religion, do.

Abhijit Naskar

#6. I believe in an India of pluralism and diversity, not of religious bigotry and caste politics. I believe in an India that is secure in itself and confident of its place in the world, an India that is a proud example of tolerance, freedom and hope for the downtrodden.

Shashi Tharoor

#7. Religious symbols should be visible in public space, in a dignified and non-provocative manner. Christmas trees here, Jewish menorahs there and, further along, a minaret - these symbols represent human life in all its diversity.

Tariq Ramadan

#8. For nearly two hundred years, our nation has derived its strength from the diversity of its people and of their beliefs. That strength has been greatly enhanced by [the Islamic] religious heritage.

Gerald R. Ford

#9. Allow the diversity to exist. There is nothing wrong with it. Hell, we put up with the religious right-we can put up with transgendered human beings.

Jessica Lange

#10. Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth.

Theodore Roosevelt

#11. Lack of insight into each other's private qualia of God, results in a never-ending argument between two people with vastly different conceptions of the term God.

Abhijit Naskar

#12. My exploration of the biology of beliefs has taught me universal tolerance.

Abhijit Naskar

#13. Identity is a concept of our age that should be used very carefully. All types of identities, ethnic, national, religious, sexual or whatever else, can become your prison after a while. The identity that you stand up for can enslave you and close you to the rest of the world.

Murathan Mungan

#14. For me, religious festivals and celebrations have become an important way to teach my children about how we can transform living with diversity from the superficial 'I eat ethnic food', to something dignified, mutually respectful and worthwhile.

Randa Abdel-Fattah

#15. Syria should not belong to one family, to one coterie, or to one party. It belongs to all the people of Syria equally, in all their religious and ethnic diversity.

William Hague

#16. A true religious person should not think that "my religion alone is the right path and other religions are false." Other religions are also so many paths leading to the same domain of transcendental bliss.

Abhijit Naskar

#17. A religion that demands absolutely irrefutable obedience, is anything but religion.

Abhijit Naskar

#18. I don't make any pretence of knowing about the existence of a Supreme Entity, neither do I make any attempt to create any friction among religions. If anything, I have spared myself no pains in my endeavor to smoothen the ongoing friction among all religions of the world.

Abhijit Naskar

#19. In the U.S., diversity is a politically correct slogan. In India, it is a historical fact. Much as we in the West may resent it, India has a lot to teach us when it comes to religious tolerance.

Gary Weiss

#20. Sophia could just as well have gutted me. In Allah's name, I drank beer for you. I dismantled my entire value system of holding Allah's word above all for you. I reinterpreted my Islamic teachings to justify being with you.

Sam Wazan

#21. No Scripture comes from any Supreme Creator.

Abhijit Naskar

#22. Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.

Robert F. Kennedy

#23. True religion must raise to work at the bar and the bench, on the couch and on the streets, in the cottage of the poor man and in the penthouse of the entrepreneur, with the fisherman that is catching fish and with the students that are studying.

Abhijit Naskar

#24. Make love your religion, and all the citadels of man-made religious conflicts shall disappear from the face of earth once and for all.

Abhijit Naskar

#25. Religion, as it is generally taught all over the world, is said to be based upon faith and belief, and, in most cases, consists only of different sets of theories, and that is the reason why we find all religions quarrelling with one another.

Abhijit Naskar

#26. When you move to a new environment with cultural and social characteristics different from your own, it is only logical, that you loosen some of the knots of your religious doctrines, to embrace the new and vivid environment as much as you wish to be embraced by the environment.

Abhijit Naskar

#27. Tolerance is NOT acceptance. And that's the problem with ALL religion. It teaches acceptance only for those who believe exactly as you do, and at best, tolerance for the rest of us "sinners." Sorry. Not acceptable.

Quentin R. Bufogle

#28. Unity despite diversity is exactly what defines Christianity as distinct from and antithetical to all other religious belief systems".

~R. Alan Woods [2006]

R. Alan Woods

#29. Unlike 'other' religious belief systems in competition with Christianity, we have not been called to become 'absorbed' into the deity but rather brought into communion with God through union with Christ thereby maintaining our unique individuality and personal identity

R. Alan Woods

#30. Intelligent design is a modest position theologically and philosophically. It attributes the complexity and diversity of life to intelligence, but does not identify that intelligence with the God of any religious faith or philosophical system.

William A. Dembski

#31. A rational human being of the civilized world would be like the swan that can draw the milk from a mixture of milk and water, leaving aside the water.

Abhijit Naskar

#32. By increasing the amount of Torah (obligatory religious laws) in the world, they were extending His presence in the world and making it more effective.

Karen Armstrong

#33. Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged

Rumi

#34. Given the link between belief and action, it is clear that we can no more tolerate a diversity of religious beliefs than a diversity of beliefs about epidemiology and basic hygiene.

Sam Harris

#35. It becomes clear that, given our diversity, no single religion satisfies all humanity. ... And since the majority does not practice religion, I am concerned to try to find a way to serve all humanity without appealing to religious faith.

Dalai Lama