Best 77 quotes in «religious freedom quotes» category

No book on this planet can give you the description of terms like religion, spirituality, divinity unless you discover it within the realm of your own mind.

No Bible, Quran or Veda can give you religion.

Most probably your belief system is screwed up. And so were your ancestors, before you. And now, maybe so are you. Overcome it, you!

Religious unity does not come so easily. It is not a piece of pie, which you can buy in the shop. It takes sincere efforts from every single human being on this planet.

Nothing Feels Better Than Loving You.. .. <3 <3 My Lord Shiva !!

People fight over religion, because they don't understand religion. They think reading a few Bibles, Qurans and Vedas makes them religious. Books are not religion my friend. Real religion is realization of the Self.

Plenty are the tastes and plenty are the paths.

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

Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea. It has a dead man as its president, Kim Jong-Il is only head of the party and head of the army. He's not head of the state. That office belongs to his deceased father, Kim Il-Sung. It's a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. It's one short of a trinity I might add. The son is the reincarnation of the father. It is the most revolting and utter and absolute and heartless tyranny the human species has ever evolved. But at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea!

Religious freedom doesn't include the freedom to disregard the law and restrict another's freedom to believe and act differently. No one's forcing Catholic nuns to practice birth control, or priests to wear condoms (good idea tho). If you really feel your religious beliefs conflict with the mandates of running a business, the solution is simple: Get your ass out of the boardroom and back to the pulpit (where it belongs).

Religious unity and religious tolerance are not the same thing. Unity doesn’t come merely through tolerance. You don’t need to tolerate people from other religions. It is time you start loving them. Toleration may make you a decent person, but it is love that makes you a true human being.

Roger Williams died sometime during the early months of 1683. Some of what he said and wrote during his lifetime belongs to the seventeenth century. But much of his historical and philosophical record speaks to us across the centuries.

Religion must bring oneness, otherwise it’s not religion.

Science proceeds through constant questioning and analyzing the predominant scientific laws and modifying them if necessary. If science, as the most advanced tool in the hands of rational humanity can have the guts to change itself based on the needs of the time and society, why can’t religion as the most influential tool in the hands of divine humanity, modify itself?

Science is never rigid, it is flexible. It can bend towards any direction that ultimately tends to do good to humanity. Religion must learn the same. And the moment any religion learns that, it would become the most scientific religion in the world.

The book-learned preacher who carries the badge of authority, is by no means religious.

Someone who doesn’t know. There are lots of people who don’t, in other countries.” “If they come here, you’d think they’d learn,” she said. “It’s stupid to go somewhere and wander around offending their gods and people.” “He was Roman,” I said. Dion snorted. “Which means he didn’t care.” We looked at him, and he went on. “That’s what my father says. He says the Romans don’t care anything for the customs of other people, and that they don’t even want other people to worship their own gods. That the worst thing that can happen to a people is to come under Roman rule.” “Why would you care who your subjects worship?” Cleopatra said practically. “As long as they pay their taxes and don’t rebel? I mean, most people worship Isis and Serapis at least some, but if they don’t it’s not like there’s anything bad that happens to them.” “Like the Jews,” I said, thinking of the most prominent group that didn’t worship Isis and Serapis. Jews had been in Alexandria forever, but there never had been any kind of problem with them. Dion nodded. He looked very serious. “Since Rome annexed Judea four years ago, lots and lots more Jews have come to Alexandria. Haven’t you noticed?” I hadn’t, but didn’t say so. I didn’t know a huge amount about Judea, truth to tell, though of course I knew about Queen Salome, who had only died seven years before and had been the most powerful queen in generations. Since her death, her country had fallen into all kinds of disarray. “The Roman Pompeius Magnus even went into the Temple, into the Holy of Holies,” Dion said. “It was his way of showing that he could do whatever he wanted.” That was serious, I thought. Almost all temples had an inner sanctum, where no one but priests were allowed. It was horribly blasphemous for anyone else to go in, and it certainly would never have occurred to Auletes to do it, even in the temples of our own gods. And it’s always a bad idea to offend other people’s gods. You never knew what might happen. Cleopatra must have been thinking the same thing. “What happened?” she asked. Dion shrugged. “Jews hate Pompeius. And lots and lots have come to Alexandria since then, bringing their money and their crafts.” “And so their economy is hurt and ours benefits,

The Founding Faith, then, was not Christianity, and it was not secularism. It was religious liberty—a revolutionary formula for promoting faith by leaving it alone.

The frog in the well knows nothing more grand than its own tiny well.

The moment the religious population of the world begins to see the prophets what they really were - mortal teachers of the mortal world, a great portion of the world's religious conflicts shall vanish into thin air.

The highest creed is Universal Acceptance.

The men and women who forged this nation [USA] were straight-up maniacs about freedom. It was just about the only thing they cared about, so they jammed it into everything. This is understandable, as they were breaking away from a monarchy. But it's also a little bonkers, since one of the things they desired most desperately was freedom of religion, based on the premise that Europe wasn't religious enough and that they needed the freedom to live by non-secular laws that were more restrictive than that of any government, including provisions for the burning of suspected witches.

The more you keep your religious beliefs concealed from others, the lesser religious conflicts occur in the society.

The New World was settled [by Europeans] to promote Christianity. For more than 150 years, colonial governments actively supported the dominant faith. Less acknowledged today is a point well understood by the Founding Fathers: Nearly all of these experiments in state encouragement of religion failed.

They left their encampment with dirt-covered linen strewn about the abandoned grounds amongst clothes, shoes, children’s toys and other discarded belongings. The handcart wheels crunched over them, and the dry wheels screamed as the Willie Company started for Zion.

The theory of the relations between states and churches is bound up with the theory of Toleratio, and on that suject the eighteenth century scarcely rose above an intermittend, embarrassed, and unscientific view. For religious liberty is composed of the properties both of religion and of liberty, and one of its factors never became an object of disinterested observation among actual leaders of opinion. They preferred the argument of doubt to the argument of certitude, and sought to defeat intolerance by casting out revelation as they had defeated the persecution of witches by casting out the devil. There remained a flaw in their liberalism, for liberty apart from belief is liberty with a good deal of the substance taken out of it. The problem is less complicated and the solution less radical and less profound.

We don't need to tolerate each other. We need to accept each other.

To reform a religion, one must at first be able to recognize the follies of that religion, then only one can take necessary steps to discard those flaws. If your son has a drug addiction, you need to first recognize the fact that he is addicted to drugs, then you can take action to send him for rehab. Likewise, in order reform a religion’s historical habit of beating wives and using violence on people from other religions, you must first be conscientious enough to accept the fact, that, that specific religion has a history replete with violence, then you can take measures to mend the cultural mindset of that religion.

Today's 'religious freedom' policies should not be seen as a problem limited to LGBT people but as a co-optation of religion that affects us all.

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.

We live in a world where you can be put to death for your belief and shows how humanity judges in a dreadful motif.

What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.

What does religious freedom mean if we would use it as a cover for hate and privilege?

When we hide discrimination under the guise of 'religious freedom,' we make a mockery of human rights.

A Christian must worship the Self as Christ, not Christ as Christ. A Muslim must worship the Self as Mohammed, not Mohammed as Mohammed. A Hindu must worship the Self as Krishna, not Krishna as Krishna.

You can reach the roof of your house by stone stairs, by wooden stairs, by bamboo steps or by a rope. Likewise, there are diverse ways of experiencing the Absolute Divinity – the Ultimate Oneness. In fact, in that blissful state of oneness, you and God are one and the same thing.

Your greatest weapon is your MIND! Lock and load it with the greatest ammunition; EDUCATION. And protect it with your best defense; GOD.

Your spiritual goals can be as numerous as there are stars in the sky. And so can be your religions. But in all your vivid and diverse paths of practicing religion and spirituality, there is one very common and simple element that knows no bounds. That element is the eternal bliss that enables you to attain unimaginable feats of excellence. It is not tied to any scripture of yours, yet it is in every scripture of yours.

A child who goes to school and shares his or her lunch with the classmates, is a billion times greater and more religious than all the book-learned priests, imams, rabbis and pundits in the world combined.

A Christian sits in his or her well and thinks that the whole world is his or her well. The Jew sits in his or her little well and thinks that it is the whole world. A Muslim sits cooped up in his or her tiny well and believes it to be the whole universe. The same goes for a Hindu and all others. Also, atheists are no different from all those orthodox believers.

While these Christians (the majority in a recent poll) are particularly concerned that religious freedoms are being eroded in this country, “they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture,

To Americans religious freedom is sacred.

An Act for establishing religious Freedom. Section 1 Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time; That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions, which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical; That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry, That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right, That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it; That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

A man woke up at midnight and wanted to smoke. Therefore he looked for some fire, for which he went to a neighbor’s house and knocked at the door. The neighbor opened the door and asked him what he wanted. The man said, I wish to smoke. Can you give me a little fire? The neighbor replied, O.M.G.! What the heck is wrong with you? You have taken so much trouble to come and wake us up at the middle of the night, while in your own hand you have a lantern! The God that human beings so keenly seek, lives within the human biology, yet they wander hitherto searching for it.

I can't imagine why a media company views a law preventing the commission of hate speech as a restriction on media freedom, but it is probably similar to how some religious folk view hate speech as being essential to religious freedom.

Any religion that does not evolve with time, either gets destroyed or destroys the world.

But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. If it be said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

Due to the monstrous activity of a handful of extremists, the majority of the human society has been conditioned to believe that the term 'musalman' is somehow synonymous with terrorism. But the reality is, the term 'musalman' refers to someone with 'musallam iman,' that means, a pure conscience. Thus any individual whose conscience is pure and clear, is a musalman or muslim, regardless of socio-religious background. Likewise, any human being who loves his or her neighbor is a Christian. Hence, scriptures can't define your religion, only your actions with other people do.

El terrorismo surge del fundamentalismo no de la religión.

Going out on a date was very cheap in those days [1962]. I borrowed my father's station wagon, put in a gallon of gas for 29 cents, went to the movies for 50 cents a ticket, bought a pack of cigarettes for 25 cents, and had a McDonald's hamburger for 19 cents apiece. It was very doable.