Top 72 Quotes About The Purpose Of Religion
#1. The problem with this generation is they are so quick to define who they are in the process of searching. It is their need for immediate acceptance that keeps them from exploring further.
Shannon L. Alder
#2. The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.
[Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803]
James Madison
#3. That's the biggest purpose of religious gathering: permission to look terrible in public. We used to go to church to confess our worst behaviour, to be heard and forgiven, then to be redeemed and accepted back into our community
Chuck Palahniuk in interview with TMO
Chuck Palahniuk
#4. 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 governments.
Jeremy Bentham
#5. Folks, the message of Christ is simple. It's not heady, or high-minded, or supremely intellectual at all. It is simple on purpose. It is simple enough to be understood by every person.
Curtis A. Chamberlain
#7. Self-realization is, in fact, the only religion. For it is the true purpose of religion, no matter how people define their beliefs.
Paramahansa Yogananda
#8. Which is the more useful, the scientific world-view, with all its wonderful technical miracles, or the religious world-view, with its sense of purpose and belonging?
Chris Beckett
#9. The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.
C.S. Lewis
#10. Love is the essence of all religion, mysticism, and philosophy, and for the one who has learned this, love fulfills the purpose of religion, ethics, and philosophy, and the lover is raised above all diversities of faiths and beliefs.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
#11. My purpose is to help people look at themselves and begin to shift their concepts. Remember, we are not our country, our race, or religion. We are eternal spirits. Seeing ourselves as spiritual beings without label is a way to transform the world and reach a sacred place for all of humanity.
Wayne Dyer
#12. The foundation laid in us before was a foundation of thoughts, traditions, and religion of men
Sunday Adelaja
#13. If we are going to inquire into that, (religion, i.e. a life in which there is no fragmentation whatsoever) we must not only be free of all belief, but also we must be very clear about the distorting factor of all effort, direction and purpose.
Krishnamurti
#14. The purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. How much am I doing about my anger, attachment, hatred, pride, and jealousy? These are the things we must check in our daily lives." - HIS HOLINESS, THE DALAI LAMA
Haemin Sunim
#15. I believe the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in that religion or this religion, we are all seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness ...
Dalai Lama XIV
#16. The soul is a mystery. Scientists and Theologians constantly butt heads on the soul's definitive and can't come to grips with its purpose and actual existence. Yet, the basic framework taught in a High School physics class helps with an explanation of the latter - the existence of the soul.
H.D. Rennerfeldt
#17. If heaven really exists: then heaven is the job, hell is unemployment, while life is merely an interview.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#18. Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless.
Bertrand Russell
#19. One of the great purposes of religion itself is being hindered by an exclusive-ism that doesn't take into account the common elements and values that we actually share.
Thomas Keating
#20. All religions are not the same. All religions do not point to God. All religions do not say that all religions are the same. At the heart of every religion is an uncompromising commitment to a particular way of defining who God is or is not and accordingly, of defining life's purpose.
Ravi Zacharias
#21. Asking, "If there is no God, what is the purpose of life?" is like asking, "If there is no master, whose slave will I be?" If your purpose of life is to submit as a slave, then your meaning comes from flattering the ego of a person whom who should detest.
Dan Barker
#22. I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be nonsectarian and no public moneys appropriated for sectarian schools.
Theodore Roosevelt
#23. The purpose of religion is not so much to get us into heaven, or to keep us out of hell, but to put a little bit of heaven into us, and take the hell out of us. This has always been the greatest responsibility of religion.
E. Stanley Jones
#24. What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?'
'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose
a god who simply is.
Stanislaw Lem
#25. There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot. Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind to the level of brutes. They are the sworn and sinister agents of Beelzebub, who yearns to conquer the world, and has his eye especially upon Tennessee.]
H.L. Mencken
#26. In the hands of thinking humanity, the purpose of the tool of Divinity or Religion is not the service of bookish doctrines, but the realization of the self.
Abhijit Naskar
#27. The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institution may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest purposes.
George Washington
#28. This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.
Robert Green Ingersoll
#29. The only science that gives purpose to every other science is the science of religion - the science of our happy relationship with, and our providential dependence on God and our neighbor.
Solanus Casey
#30. Basically, fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon. In the same way that Hitler evoked a mythological religion of German purity and the glory of the past, the Islamists use religion to evoke emotions and passions in people who have been oppressed for a long time in order to reach their purpose.
Azar Nafisi
#31. Science and Religion are two vividly different realms of the human mind. They work differently at the molecular level, but the purpose of both is alleviation of the mind from the darkness of ignorance.
Abhijit Naskar
#32. Poetry has historically been allied with religion and morals; it has served the purpose of penetrating the mysterious depths of things.
John Dewey
#33. The very purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. Rather, we must criticize ourselves. How much am I doing about my anger? About my attachment, about my hatred, about my pride, my jealousy? These are the things which we must check in daily life.
Dalai Lama
#34. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family at home.
Gore Vidal
#35. The purpose of religion is to enhance love, compassion, kindness, and care.
It teaches us forgiveness, humility, tolerance, patience, and to share.
Debasish Mridha
#36. The purpose of science is to develop, without prejudice or preconception of any kind, a knowledge of the facts, the laws, and the processes of nature. The even more important task of religion, on the other hand, is to develop the consciences, the ideals, and the aspirations of mankind.
Robert Andrews Millikan
#37. The essence of spirituality is the duty to live to its full the glorious destiny of being human. The purpose of religion should be to empower all people in this adventure of living with dignity and fulfillment.
Agnivesh
#39. Don't just practice religion, abide by the principles of Christ
Sunday Adelaja
#40. Once again, only religion can answer the question of the purpose of life. One can hardly be wrong in concluding that the idea of life having a purpose stands and falls with the religious system.
Sigmund Freud
#41. The purpose of Neurotheology shall be to ease human sufferings with a deeper understanding of the neurobiological substrates of spirituality and divinity.
Abhijit Naskar
#42. 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.
Dalai Lama XIV
#43. Whereas religions may serve a benign purpose by letting many people feel comfortable with the level of morality they themselves can attain, no religion holds its member to the high standards of moral responsibility that the secular world of science and medicine does!
Daniel Dennett
#44. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them.
Abraham Lincoln
#45. The holy word of God is on everyone's lips ... but ... we see almost everyone presenting their own versions of God's word, with the sole purpose of using religion as a pretext for making others think as they do.
Baruch Spinoza
#46. Our Constitution ... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.
Thomas Jefferson
#47. The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.
Bertrand Russell
#48. The whole purpose of religion is to facilitate love and compassion, patience, tolerance, humility, and forgiveness.
Dalai Lama
#49. ...relics and churches, paintings and sculptures and holy places, were all just tools, all serving the same purpose: to bring a seeking soul into awareness of the divine.
Sam Cabot
#50. For limited purposes only, let me define religion as a set of symbolic forms and acts which relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence.
Robert Neelly Bellah
#51. I did not want to reject religion as nonsense because life seemed to have no ultimate purpose without it, and most of the good people I knew were Christians.
Luke Ford
#52. The purpose of the gospel is to make bad men good and good men better, and to change human nature.
David O. McKay
#54. The purpose of a spiritual path or religion is to provide a precise and believable way into what seems unbelievable.
Geneen Roth
#55. Magic is that paganistic reversal of the process of religion, in which man, instead of letting himself be used by God for the divine purpose, drags down his god to the level of a tool, which he uses for his own selfish purpose.
Geerhardus Vos
#56. I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in relgion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is toward happiness ...
Dalai Lama XIV
#57. Churches were never meant to be mental hospitals. They were supposed to be military outposts under orders to storm the gates of hell. Every believer is on active duty and called to serve a higher purpose with the rank of their blessings and talents.
Shannon L. Alder
#58. Somewhere along the line, organized religion stopped being about faith, and started being about who had the power to keep the faith. You said that the purpose of religion was to bring people together. But does it, really? Or does it-knowingly, purposefully, and intentionally
break them apart?
Jodi Picoult
#59. When people commit themselves to a certain vision of reality, it becomes their ultimate explainer. It serves to interpret the universe for them, to guide their moral decisions, to give meaning and purpose to life, and all the other functions normally associated with a religion.
Nancy Pearcey
#60. Politics should share one purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through the education of his passions.
George Will
#61. I have watched a lot of films... about war... but still I can't understand what's the purpose of war???
Killing inocent people??
About religion... so my god says that killing other people isn't acceptable... but your is acceptable???
WTF
Deyth Banger
#62. The heart must be renewed by divine grace, or it will be in vain to seek for purity of life. He who attempts to build up a noble, virtuous character independent of the grace of Christ is building his house upon the shifting sand.
Ellen G. White
#63. Well, sure, maybe religion serves a purpose, but maybe religion's role is not to give us the answers, but to give us the questions, not to resolve the mystery of life, but to increase our wonder at the things we don't know.
Anna Hammond
#64. The purpose of religion is to keep the poor from killing the rich.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#65. Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality ... The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him.
Evelyn Underhill
#66. There is a purpose in life
to raise men nearer to the likeness of God. Whoever seeks that ideal, daily, finds joy; and in no other way can true joy be found.
John Andreas Widtsoe
#67. Belief in immortality is harmful because it is not in our power to conceive of the soul as really incorporeal. So this belief is in fact a belief in the prolongation of life, and it robs death of its purpose.
Simone Weil
#68. O ye children of men! The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men.
Baha'u'llah
#69. If we really exist merely to fulfill God's plan: then life is a television drama; with God being the scriptwriter, the director, and, the audience.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#70. Perhaps the Creator of this strange place knows us better than we know ourselves. Perhaps humanity was meant to eternally ponder the purpose and importance of our own existence. If we were assured of either, we'd be intolerable creatures.
Tiffany Madison
#71. Religion is not something separate and apart from ordinary life. It is life - life of every kind viewed from the standpoint of meaning and purpose: life lived in the fuller awareness of its human quality and spiritual significance.
A. Powell Davies
#72. What was the purpose, then, of everything they taught in here? If it couldn't prevent men from acting like monsters?
Brandon Sanderson
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