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Religious Information

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.[1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect. Most religions have organized behaviors, including clerical hierarchies, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, congregations of laity, regular meetings or services for the purposes of veneration of a deity or for prayer, holy places (either natural or architectural), and/or scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include sermons, commemoration of the activities of a god or gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture.

The development of religion has taken different forms in different cultures. Some religions place an emphasis on belief, while others emphasize practice. Some religions focus on the subjective experience of the religious individual, while others consider the activities of the religious community to be most important. Some religions claim to be universal, believing their laws and cosmology to be binding for everyone, while others are intended to be practiced only by a closely defined or localized group. In many places religion has been associated with public institutions such as education, hospitals, the family, government, and political hierarchies. Anthropologists John Monoghan and Peter Just state that, "it seems apparent that one thing religion or belief helps us do is deal with problems of human life that are significant, persistent, and intolerable. One important way in which religious beliefs accomplish this is by providing a set of ideas about how and why the world is put together that allows people to accommodate anxieties and deal with misfortune."[2]

Some academics studying the subject have divided religions into three broad categories: world religions, a term which refers to transcultural, international faiths; indigenous religions, which refers to smaller, culture-specific or nation-specific religious groups; and new religious movements, which refers to recently developed faiths.[3] One modern academic theory of religion, social constructionism, says that religion is a modern concept that suggests all spiritual practice and worship follows a model similar to the Abrahamic religions as an orientation system that helps to interpret reality and define human beings,[4] and thus religion, as a concept, has been applied inappropriately to non-Western cultures that are not based upon such systems, or in which these systems are a substantially simpler construct.

Contents

Etymology

Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community," from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods,"[5] "obligation, the bond between man and the gods"[6]) is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possibility is derivation from a reduplicated *le-ligare, an interpretation traced to Cicero connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully". Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell favor the derivation from ligare "bind, connect", probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect," which was made prominent by St. Augustine, following the interpretation of Lactantius.[7][8] The medieval usage alternates with order in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders: "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece, of a knight 'of the religion of Avys'".[9]

According to the philologist Max Müller, the root of the English word "religion", the Latin religio, was originally used to mean only "reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things, piety" (which Cicero further derived to mean "diligence").[10][11] Max Müller characterized many other cultures around the world, including Egypt, Persia, and India, as having a similar power structure at this point in history. What is called ancient religion today, they would have only called "law".[12]

Many languages have words that can be translated as "religion", but they may use them in a very different way, and some have no word for religion at all. For example, the Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes translated as "religion", also means law. Throughout classical South Asia, the study of law consisted of concepts such as penance through piety and ceremonial as well as practical traditions. Medieval Japan at first had a similar union between "imperial law" and universal or "Buddha law", but these later became independent sources of power.[13][14]

There is no precise equivalent of "religion" in Hebrew, and Judaism does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities.[15] One of its central concepts is "halakha", sometimes translated as "law"", which guides religious practice and belief and many aspects of daily life.

The use of other terms, such as obedience to God or Islam are likewise grounded in particular histories and vocabularies.[16]

Major denominations and religions of the world

Origins

There are a number of theories regarding the origins of religion. Greg M. Epstein, a Humanist chaplain at Harvard University, states that "essentially all the world's major religions were founded on the principle that divine beings or forces can promise a level of justice in a supernatural realm that cannot be perceived in this natural one."[17] According to anthropologists John Monaghan and Peter Just,

Many of the great world religions appear to have begun as revitalization movements of some sort, as the vision of a charismatic prophet fires the imaginations of people seeking a more comprehensive answer to their problems than they feel is provided by everyday beliefs. Charismatic individuals have emerged at many times and places in the world. It seems that the key to long-term success – and many movements come and go with little long-term effect – has relatively little to do with the prophets, who appear with surprising regularity, but more to do with the development of a group of supporters who are able to institutionalize the movement.[18]

Religious movements

Main article: Major religious groups

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the academic practice of comparative religion divided religious belief into philosophically defined categories called "world religions." However, some recent scholarship has argued that not all types of religion are necessarily separated by mutually exclusive philosophies, and furthermore that the utility of ascribing a practice to a certain philosophy, or even calling a given practice religious, rather than cultural, political, or social in nature, is limited.[19][20][21] The current state of psychological study about the nature of religiousness suggests that it is better to refer to religion as a largely invariant phenomenon that should be distinguished from cultural norms (i.e. "religions").[22] The list of religious movements given here is therefore an attempt to summarize the most important regional and philosophical influences on local communities, but it is by no means a complete description of every religious community, nor does it explain the most important elements of individual religiousness.

The four largest religious groups by population, estimated to account for between 5 and 7 billion people, are Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism (with the relative numbers for Buddhism and Hinduism dependent on the extent of syncretism).

Four largest religions Adherents % of world population Article
World population 6.99 billion[23] Figures taken from individual articles:
Christianity 2.1 billion – 2.2 billion 33% – 34% Christianity by country
Islam 1.5 billion – 1.6 billion[24] 22% – 23% Islam by country
Buddhism 500 million – 1.9 billion[25] 7% – 29%[25] Buddhism by country
Hinduism 1.0 billion – 1.1 billion 15.2% – 16.2% Hinduism by country
Total 5.1 billion – 6.8 billion[25] 77% – 99%[25]
The patriarch Abraham (by József Molnár)
There are other smaller groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and the Latter Day Saint movement, whose inclusion in Christianity is sometimes disputed.
Muslims praying around Kaaba, the most sacred site in Islam
  • Islam refers to the religion taught by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a major political and religious figure of the 7th century CE. Islam is the dominant religion of northern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. As with Christianity, there is no single orthodoxy in Islam but a multitude of traditions which are generally categorized as Sunni and Shia, although there are other minor groups as well. Wahhabi is the dominant Muslim schools of thought in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There are also several Islamic republics, including Iran, which is run by a Shia Supreme Leader.
  • The Bahá'í Faith was founded in the 19th century in Iran and since then has spread worldwide. It teaches unity of all religious philosophies and accepts all of the prophets of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as well as additional prophets including its founder Bahá'u'lláh.
  • Smaller regional Abrahamic groups, including Samaritanism (primarily in Israel and the West Bank), the Rastafari movement (primarily in Jamaica), and Druze (primarily in Syria and Lebanon).
Hindu statue of Rama in Kalaram Temple (India) Zoroastrian Fire Temple Incense burner in China A Modern-style Unitarian Universalist sanctuary

Sociological classifications of religious movements suggest that within any given religious group, a community can resemble various types of structures, including "churches", "denominations", "sects", "cults", and "institutions".

The Hindu population of South Asia comprises about 2,000 castes.[28] According to some Hindu literature, there are 330 million (including local and regional) Hindu deities.[29]

Types of religion

History of religions founding figures

Anthropology Comparative religion Development Neurotheology / God gene Origins Psychology

Prehistoric Ancient Near East · Ancient Egypt · Semitic Indo-European · Vedic Hinduism · Greco-Roman · Celtic · Germanic Axial Age · Vedanta · Shramana · Dharma · Tao · Hellenism · Monism · Dualism · Monotheism Christianization Islamization Renaissance · Reformation Age of Reason New religious movements · Great Awakening · Fundamentalism · New Age Postmodernism

Abrahamic · Judaism · Christianity · Islam · Bahá'í Faith Indic · Hinduism · Buddhism · Jainism · Sikhism · Ayyavazhi · Taoism Neopagan · Wicca
Further information: History of religions

Some scholars classify religions as either universal religions that seek worldwide acceptance and actively look for new converts, or ethnic religions that are identified with a particular ethnic group and do not seek converts.[30] Others reject the distinction, pointing out that all religious practices, whatever their philosophical origin, are ethnic because they come from a particular culture.[31][32][33]

Issues in religion

Interfaith cooperation

Because religion continues to be recognized in Western thought as a universal impulse, many religious practitioners have aimed to band together in interfaith dialogue,cooperation and religious peacebuilding. The first major dialogue was the Parliament of the World's Religions at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which remains notable even today both in affirming "universal values" and recognition of the diversity of practices among different cultures. The 20th century has been especially fruitful in use of interfaith dialogue as a means of solving ethnic, political, or even religious conflict, with Christian-Jewish reconciliation representing a complete reverse in the attitudes of many Christian communities towards Jews.

Recent interfaith initiatives include "A Common Word", launched in 2007 and focused on bringing Muslim and Christian leaders together,[34] the "C1 World Dialogue",[35] the "Common Ground" initiative between Islam and Buddhism,[36] and a United Nations sponsored "World Interfaith Harmony Week".[37][38]

Secularism and irreligion

Main articles: Secularism and Irreligion See also: Criticism of religion, Atheism, Agnosticism, and Antireligion

The terms "atheist" (lack of belief in any gods) and "agnostic" (belief in the unknowability of the existence of gods), though specifically contrary to theistic (e.g. Christian, Jewish, and Muslim) religious teachings, do not by definition mean the opposite of "religious". There are religions (including Buddhism and Taoism), in fact, that classify some of their followers as agnostic, atheistic, or nontheistic. The true opposite of "religious" is the word "irreligious". Irreligion describes an absence of any religion; antireligion describes an active opposition or aversion toward religions in general.

Critics of religion consider it to be to be outdated, harmful to the individual (e.g. brainwashing of children, faith healing, circumcision), harmful to society (e.g. holy wars, terrorism, wasteful distribution of resources), to impede the progress of science, and to encourage immoral acts (e.g. blood sacrifice, discrimination against homosexuals and women). A major criticism of many religions is that they require beliefs that are irrational, unscientific, or unreasonable, because religious beliefs and traditions lack scientific or rational foundations.

As religion became a more personal matter in Western culture, discussions of society found a new focus on political and scientific meaning, and religious attitudes (dominantly Christian) were increasingly seen as irrelevant for the needs of the European world. On the political side, Ludwig Feuerbach recast Christian beliefs in light of humanism, paving the way for Karl Marx's famous characterization of religion as "the opium of the people". Meanwhile, in the scientific community, T.H. Huxley in 1869 coined the term "agnostic," a term—subsequently adopted by such figures as Robert Ingersoll—that, while directly conflicting with and novel to Christian tradition, is accepted and even embraced in some other religions. Later, Bertrand Russell told the world Why I Am Not a Christian, which influenced several later authors to discuss their breakaway from their own religious uprbringings from Islam to Hinduism.

Some modern-day critics, such as Bryan Caplan, hold that religion lacks utility in human society; they may regard religion as irrational.[39] Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi has spoken out against undemocratic Islamic countries justifying "oppressive acts" in the name of Islam.[40]

Related forms of thought

Religion and superstition

Further information: Superstition, Magical thinking, and Magic and religion

Superstition has been described as "the incorrect establishment of cause and effect" or a false conception of causation.[41] Religion is more complex and includes social institutions and morality. But religions may include superstitions or make use of magical thinking. Adherents of one religion sometimes think of other religions as superstition.[42][43] Some atheists, deists, and skeptics regard religious belief as superstition.

Greek and Roman pagans, who saw their relations with the gods in political and social terms, scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods (deisidaimonia), as a slave might fear a cruel and capricious master. The Romans called such fear of the gods superstitio.[44] Early Christianity was outlawed as a superstitio Iudaica, a "Jewish superstition", by Domitian in the 80s AD. In AD 425, when Rome had become Christian, Theodosius II outlawed pagan traditions as superstitious.

The Roman Catholic Church considers superstition to be sinful in the sense that it denotes a lack of trust in the divine providence of God and, as such, is a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that superstition "in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110). "Superstition," it says, "is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. Matthew 23:16-22" (para. #2111)

Myth

Main article: Mythology

The word myth has several meanings.

  1. A traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon;
  2. A person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence; or
  3. A metaphor for the spiritual potentiality in the human being.[45]
Urarina shaman, 1988

Ancient polytheistic religions, such as those of Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia, are usually categorized under the heading of mythology. Religions of pre-industrial peoples, or cultures in development, are similarly called "myths" in the anthropology of religion. The term "myth" can be used pejoratively by both religious and non-religious people. By defining another person's religious stories and beliefs as mythology, one implies that they are less real or true than one's own religious stories and beliefs. Joseph Campbell remarked, "Mythology is often thought of as other people's religions, and religion can be defined as mis-interpreted mythology."[46]

In sociology, however, the term myth has a non-pejorative meaning. There, myth is defined as a story that is important for the group whether or not it is objectively or provably true. Examples include the death and resurrection of Jesus, which, to Christians, explains the means by which they are freed from sin and is also ostensibly a historical event. But from a mythological outlook, whether or not the event actually occurred is unimportant. Instead, the symbolism of the death of an old "life" and the start of a new "life" is what is most significant. Religious believers may or may not accept such symbolic interpretations.

Religion and health

Main article: Impacts of religion on health

Mayo Clinic researchers examined the association between religious involvement and spirituality, and physical health, mental health, health-related quality of life, and other health outcomes. The authors reported that: "Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide."[47]

Religion and violence

Main article: Religious violence See also: Christianity and violence, Judaism and violence, and Islam and violence The Crusades were a series of a military campaigns fought mainly between Christian Europe and Muslims. Shown here is a battle scene from the First Crusade. They were inspired at the jihad of the Islam civilization.

Charles Selengut characterizes the phrase "religion and violence" as "jarring", asserting that "religion is thought to be opposed to violence and a force for peace and reconciliation. He acknowledges, however, that "the history and scriptures of the world's religions tell stories of violence and war as they speak of peace and love."[48]

Hector Avalos argues that, because religions claim divine favor for themselves, over and against other groups, this sense of righteousness leads to violence because conflicting claims to superiority, based on unverifiable appeals to God, cannot be adjudicated objectively.[49]

Critics of religion Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins go further and argue that religions do tremendous harm to society by using violence to promote their goals, in ways that are endorsed and exploited by their leaders.[50][51]

Regina Schwartz argues that all monotheistic religions are inherently violent because of an exclusivism that inevitably fosters violence against those that are considered outsiders.[52] Lawrence Wechsler asserts that Schwartz isn't just arguing that Abrahamic religions have a violent legacy, but that the legacy is actually genocidal in nature.[53]

Byron Bland asserts that one of the most prominent reasons for the "rise of the secular in Western thought" was the reaction against the religious violence of the 16th and 17th centuries. He asserts that "(t)he secular was a way of living with the religious differences that had produced so much horror. Under secularity, political entities have a warrant to make decisions independent from the need to enforce particular versions of religious orthodoxy. Indeed, they may run counter to certain strongly held beliefs if made in the interest of common welfare. Thus, one of the important goals of the secular is to limit violence."[54]

Nonetheless, believers have used similar arguments when responding to atheists in these discussions, pointing to the widespread imprisonment and mass murder of individuals under atheist states in the twentieth century:[55][56][57]

“ And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic? Who can dispute that they did their bloody deeds by claiming to be establishing a 'new man' and a religion-free utopia? These were mass murders performed with atheism as a central part of their ideological inspiration, they were not mass murders done by people who simply happened to be atheist. –Dinesh D'Souza[57] ”

Religion and the law

This section requires expansion.

There are laws and statutes that make reference to religion.[58] This has led scholar Winnifred Sullivan to claims that religious freedom is impossible.[59] Others argue that the Western legal principle of separation of church and state tends to engender a new, more inclusive civil religion.[60]

Religion and science

Main articles: Relationship between religion and science and Epistemology

Religious knowledge, according to religious practitioners, may be gained from religious leaders, sacred texts, scriptures, or personal revelation. Some religions view such knowledge as unlimited in scope and suitable to answer any question; others see religious knowledge as playing a more restricted role, often as a complement to knowledge gained through physical observation. Adherents to various religious faiths often maintain that religious knowledge obtained via sacred texts or revelation is absolute and infallible and thereby creates an accompanying religious cosmology, although the proof for such is often tautological and generally limited to the religious texts and revelations that form the foundation of their belief.

In contrast, the scientific method gains knowledge by testing hypotheses to develop theories through elucidation of facts or evaluation by experiments and thus only answers cosmological questions about the universe that can be observed and measured. It develops theories of the world which best fit physically observed evidence. All scientific knowledge is subject to later refinement, or even outright rejection, in the face of additional evidence. Scientific theories that have an overwhelming preponderance of favorable evidence are often treated as de facto verities in general parlance, such as the theories of general relativity and natural selection to explain respectively the mechanisms of gravity and evolution.

Religion as a Christian concept

The social constructionists

In recent years, some academic writers have described religion according to the theory of social constructionism, which considers how ideas and social phenomena develop in a social context. Among the main proponents of this theory of religion are Timothy Fitzgerald, Daniel Dubuisson and Talal Asad. The social constructionists argue that religion is a modern concept that developed from Christianity and was then applied inappropriately to non-Western cultures.

Dubuisson, a French anthropologist, says that the idea of religion has changed a lot over time and that one cannot fully understand its development by relying on etymology, which "tends to minimize or cancel out the role of history".[61] "What the West and the history of religions in its wake have objectified under the name 'religion'", he says, " is ... something quite unique, which could be appropriate only to itself and its own history."[61] He notes that St. Augustine's definition of religio differed from the way we used the modern word "religion".[61] Dubuisson prefers the term "cosmographic formation" to religion. Dubuisson says that, with the emergence of religion as a category separate from culture and society, there arose religious studies. The initial purpose of religious studies was to demonstrate the superiority of the "living" or "universal" European world view to the "dead" or "ethnic" religions scattered throughout the rest of the world, expanding the teleological project of Schleiermacher and Tiele to a worldwide ideal religiousness.[62] Due to shifting theological currents, this was eventually supplanted by a liberal-ecumenical interest in searching for Western-style universal truths in every cultural tradition.[63] Clifford Geertz's definition of religion as a "cultural system" was proposed in the 20th century and continues to be widely accepted today.

According to Fitzgerald, the history of other cultures' interaction with the religious category is not about a universal constant, but rather concerns a particular idea that first developed in Europe under the influence of Christianity.[64] Fitzgerald argues that from about the 4th century CE Western Europe and the rest of the world diverged. As Christianity became commonplace, the charismatic authority identified by Augustine, a quality we might today call "religiousness", exerted a commanding influence at the local level. This system persisted in the eastern Byzantine Empire following the East-West Schism, but Western Europe regulated unpredictable expressions of charisma through the Roman Catholic Church. As the Church lost its dominance during the Protestant Reformation and Christianity became closely tied to political structures, religion was recast as the basis of national sovereignty, and religious identity gradually became a less universal sense of spirituality and more divisive, locally defined, and tied to nationality.[65] It was at this point that "religion" was dissociated with universal beliefs and moved closer to dogma in both meaning and practice. However there was not yet the idea of dogma as personal choice, only of established churches. With the Enlightenment religion lost its attachment to nationality, says Fitzgerald, but rather than becoming a universal social attitude, it now became a personal feeling or emotion.[66] Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl, commonly translated as "a feeling of absolute dependence".[67] His contemporary Hegel disagreed thoroughly, defining religion as "the Divine Spirit becoming conscious of Himself through the finite spirit."[68]

Asad argues that before the word "religion" came into common usage, Christianity was a disciplina, a "rule" just like that of the Roman Empire. This idea can be found in the writings of St. Augustine (354–430). Christianity was then a power structure opposing and superseding human institutions, a literal Kingdom of Heaven. It was the discipline taught by one's family, school, church, and city authorities, rather than something calling one to self-discipline through symbols.[69]

These ideas are developed by S. N. Balagangadhara. In the Age of Enlightenment, Balagangadhara says that the idea of Christianity as the purest expression of spirituality was supplanted by the concept of "religion" as a worldwide practice.[70] This caused such ideas as religious freedom, a reexamination of classical philosophy as an alternative to Christian thought, and more radically Deism among intellectuals such as Voltaire. Much like Christianity, the idea of "religious freedom" was exported around the world as a civilizing technique, even to regions such as India that had never treated spirituality as a matter of political identity.[19] In Japan, where Buddhism was still seen as a philosophy of natural law,[71] the concept of "religion" and "religious freedom" as separate from other power structures was unnecessary until Christian missionaries demanded free access to conversion, and when Japanese Christians refused to engage in patriotic events.[72]

Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are one, a painting in the litang style portraying three men laughing by a river stream, 12th century, Song Dynasty

Other writers

Similar views have been put forward by writers who are not social constructionists. George Lindbeck, a Lutheran and a postliberal theologian, says that religion does not refer to belief in "God" or a transcendent Absolute, but rather to "a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought ... it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments.”[73] Nicholas de Lange, Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Cambridge University, says that "The comparative study of religions is an academic discipline which has been developed within Christian theology faculties, and it has a tendency to force widely differing phenomena into a kind of strait-jacket cut to a Christian pattern. The problem is not only that other 'religions' may have little or nothing to say about questions which are of burning importance for Christianity, but that they may not even see themselves as religions in precisely the same way in which Christianity sees itself as a religion."[74]

Criticism

Main article: Criticism of religion

Religious criticism has a long history, going back at least as far as the 5th century BCE in ancient Greece with Diagoras "the atheist" of Melos, and 1st century BCE in Rome with Titus Lucretius Carus's De Rerum Natura, and continuing to the present day with the advent of New Atheism, represented by such authors as Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Victor J. Stenger, and Christopher Hitchens.

Critics consider religion to be outdated, harmful to the individual (such as brainwashing of children, faith healing, circumcision), harmful to society (such as holy wars, terrorism, wasteful distribution of resources), to impede the progress of science, and to encourage immoral acts (such as blood sacrifice, discrimination against homosexuals and women).

See also

Religion portal
Spirituality portal
Main articles: Outline of religion and Index of religion-related articles

References

Notes

  1. ^ While religion is difficult to define, one standard model of religion, used in religious studies courses, was proposed by Clifford Geertz, who simply called it a "cultural system" (Clifford Geertz, Religion as a Cultural System, 1973). A critique of Geertz's model by Talal Asad categorized religion as "an anthropological category." (Talal Asad, The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category, 1982.)
  2. ^ Monaghan, John; Just, Peter (2000). Social & Cultural Anthropology. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-19-285346-2.
  3. ^ Harvey, Graham (2000). Indigenous Religions: A Companion. (Ed: Graham Harvey). London and New York: Cassell. Page 06.
  4. ^ Vergote, Antoine, Religion, belief and unbelief: a psychological study, Leuven University Press, 1997, p. 89
  5. ^ Harper, Douglas. "religion". Online Etymology Dictionary. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=religion.
  6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
  7. ^ In The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. Toronto. Thomas Allen, 2004. ISBN 0-88762-145-7
  8. ^ In The Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers, ed. Betty Sue Flowers, New York, Anchor Books, 1991. ISBN 0-385-41886-8
  9. ^ Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1919) 1924:75.
  10. ^ Max Müller, Natural Religion, p.33, 1889
  11. ^ Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary
  12. ^ Max Müller. Introduction to the science of religion. p. 28.
  13. ^ Kuroda, Toshio and Jacqueline I. Stone, translator. "The Imperial Law and the Buddhist Law." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23.3-4 (1996)
  14. ^ Neil McMullin. Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth-Century Japan. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1984.
  15. ^ Hershel Edelheit, Abraham J. Edelheit, History of Zionism: A Handbook and Dictionary, p.3, citing Solomon Zeitlin, The Jews. Race, Nation, or Religion? ( Philadelphia: Dropsie College Press, 1936).
  16. ^ Colin Turner. Islam without Allah? New York: Routledge, 2000. pp. 11-12.
  17. ^ Esptein, Greg M. (2010). Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe. New York: HarperCollins. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-06-167011-4.
  18. ^ Monaghan, John; Just, Peter (2000). Social & Cultural Anthropology. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-19-285346-2.
  19. ^ a b Brian Kemble Pennington Was Hinduism Invented? New York: Oxford University Press US, 2005. ISBN 0195166558
  20. ^ Russell T. McCutcheon. Critics Not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001.
  21. ^ Nicholas Lash. The beginning and the end of 'religion'. Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0521566355
  22. ^ Joseph Bulbulia. "Are There Any Religions? An Evolutionary Explanation." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 17.2 (2005), pp.71-100
  23. ^ "U.S. Census Bureau - World POPClock Projection". http://www.census.gov/population/popclockworld.html.
  24. ^ Mapping the Global Muslim Population - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
  25. ^ a b c d Upper estimate includes syncretism.
  26. ^ [1]
  27. ^ Hinduism is variously defined as a "religion", "set of religious beliefs and practices", "religious tradition" etc. For a discussion on the topic, see: "Establishing the boundaries" in Gavin Flood (2003), pp. 1-17. René Guénon in his Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines (1921 ed.), Sophia Perennis, ISBN 0-900588-74-8, proposes a definition of the term "religion" and a discussion of its relevance (or lack of) to Hindu doctrines (part II, chapter 4, p. 58).
  28. ^ India – Caste. Encyclopædia Britannica.
  29. ^ Jeffrey Brodd (2003). World Religions: A Voyage of Discovery. Saint Mary's Press. p. 45. ISBN 9780884897255. http://books.google.com/?id=vOzNo4MVlgMC&pg=PA45&dq=%22330+million%22 : '[..] many gods and goddesses (traditionally 330 million!) [...] Hinduism generally regards its 330 million as deities as extensions of one ultimate reality, many names for one ocean, many "masks" for one God.'
  30. ^ Hinnells, John R. (2005). The Routledge companion to the study of religion. Routledge. pp. 439–440. ISBN 0415333113. http://books.google.com/?id=IGspjXKxIf8C. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  31. ^ Timothy Fitzgerald. The Ideology of Religious Studies. New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2000.
  32. ^ Craig R. Prentiss. Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity. New York: NYU Press, 2003. ISBN 081476701X
  33. ^ Tomoko Masuzawa. The Invention of World Religions, or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. ISBN 0226509885
  34. ^ A Common Word
  35. ^ C1 World Dialogue
  36. ^ Islam and Buddhism Common Ground
  37. ^ World Interfaith Harmony Week
  38. ^ UN resolution
  39. ^ Bryan Caplan. "Why Religious Beliefs Are Irrational, and Why Economists Should Care". http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/ldebate.htm. The article about religion and irrationality.
  40. ^ Earth Dialogues 2006 Conference, Brisbane. "In these countries, Islamic rulers want to solve 21st century issues with laws belonging to 14 centuries ago. Their views of human rights are exactly the same as it was 1400 years ago."
  41. ^ Kevin R. Foster and Hanna Kokko, "The evolution of superstitious and superstition-like behaviour", Proc. R. Soc. B (2009) 276, 31–37
  42. ^ Boyer (2001). "Why Belief". Religion Explained. http://books.google.com/books?id=wreF80OHTicC&pg=PA297&lpg=PA297&dq=%22fang+too+were+quite+amazed%22.
  43. ^ Fitzgerald 2007, p. 232
  44. ^ Veyne 1987, p 211
  45. ^ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, p. 22 ISBN 0-385-24774-5
  46. ^ Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor. Ed. Eugene Kennedy. New World Library ISBN 1-57731-202-3.
  47. ^ Paul S. Mueller, MD; David J. Plevak, MD; Teresa A. Rummans, MD. "Religious Involvement, Spirituality, and Medicine: Implications for Clinical Practice". http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/76/12/1225.full.pdf. Retrieved 13 November 2010. "We reviewed published studies, meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and subject reviews that examined the association between religious involvement and spirituality and physical health, mental health, health-related quality of life, and other health outcomes. We also reviewed articles that provided suggestions on how clinicians might assess and support the spiritual needs of patients. Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide"
  48. ^ Selengut, Charles (2008-04-28). Sacred fury: understanding religious violence. p. 1. ISBN 9780742560840. http://books.google.com/?id=mOqtEkGlq0cC&pg=PR7&dq=%22sectarian+violence%22+%22religious+violence%22#v=onepage&q=%22sectarian%20violence%22%20%22religious%20violence%22&f=false.
  49. ^ Avalos, Hector (2005). Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
  50. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2007). God is not Great. Twelve.
  51. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Bantam Books.
  52. ^ The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism By Regina M. Schwartz. University of Chicago Press. 1998.
  53. ^ Wechsler, Lawrence. "Mayhem and Monotheism". http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/2490/PDF/mayhem.pdf.
  54. ^ Bland, Byron (May 2003). "Evil Enemies: The Convergence of Religion and Politics". p. 4. http://www.law.stanford.edu/program/centers/scicn/papers/religion_and_political_violence.pdf.
  55. ^ John S. Feinberg, Paul D. Feinberg. Ethics for a Brave New World. Crossway Books. http://books.google.com/books?id=Nl-f5SKq9mgC&pg=PA697&dq=Aleksandr+Solzhenitsyn+But+if+I+were+asked+today+to+formulate+as+concisely+as+possible+the+main+cause+of+the+ruinous+revolution+that+swallowed+up+some+60+million+of+our+people,+I+could+not+put+it+more+accurately+than+to+repeat:+'Men+have+forgotten+God;+that's+why#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2007–10–18. "Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.' Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'"
  56. ^ Gregory Koukl. "The Real Murderers: Atheism or Christianity?". Stand To Reason. http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5527. Retrieved 2007–10–18.
  57. ^ a b Dinesh D'Souza. "Answering Atheist’s Arguments". Catholic Education Resource Center. http://catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0214.htm. Retrieved 2007–10–18.
  58. ^ An example is the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. However the US Supreme Court has intentionally not pinned down a precise legal definition to allow for flexibility in preserving rights for what might be regarded as a religion over time. [2]
  59. ^ Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
  60. ^ Ronald C. Wimberley and James A. Christenson. "Civil Religion and Church and State". The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Winter, 1980), pp. 35-40
  61. ^ a b c Daniel Dubuisson, The Western Construction of Religion
  62. ^ Daniel Dubuisson. "Exporting the Local: Recent Perspectives on 'Religion' as a Cultural Category", Religion Compass, 1.6 (2007), p.792.
  63. ^ Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
  64. ^ Fitzgerald, Timothy (2007). Discourse on Civility and Barbarity. Oxford University Press. pp. 45–46.
  65. ^ Fitzgerald 2007, p. 194
  66. ^ Fitzgerald 2007, p. 268
  67. ^ Hueston A. Finlay. "‘Feeling of absolute dependence’ or ‘absolute feeling of dependence’? A question revisited". Religious Studies 41.1 (2005), pp.81-94.
  68. ^ Max Müller. "Lectures on the origin and growth of religion."
  69. ^ Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1993 p.34-35.
  70. ^ S. N. Balagangadhara. The Heathen in His Blindness... New York: Brill Academic Publishers, 1994. p.159.
  71. ^ Jason Ānanda Josephson. "When Buddhism Became a 'Religion'". Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 33.1: 143–168.
  72. ^ Isomae Jun’ichi. "Deconstructing 'Japanese Religion'". Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 32.2: 235–248.
  73. ^ George A. Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1984), 33.
  74. ^ Nicholas de Lange, Judaism, Oxford University Press, 1986

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More Information Results for "Religious"
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'Religious' Images
'Religious' Definition

Adjective

religious (comparative more religious, superlative most religious)
  1. Concerning religion.
    It is the job of this court to rule on legal matters. We do not consider religious issues.
  2. Committed to the practice of religion.
    I was much more religious as a teenager than I am now.
  3. Highly dedicated, as one would be to a religion.
    I'm a religious fan of college basketball.
Related terms
from: Wiktionary: religious,
Wed May 9 16:39:22 2012
'Religious' Quotes

  • Anybody that believes in separation of church and state needs to leave right now. -Star Parker (Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education)
  • The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. -William Rehnquist (Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court)
  • The best way to insure the earth is never over populated is for sensible and righteous governments to clear all forms of atheism and heresy. -Robert T. Lee (Society for the Practical Establishment of the Ten Commandments)

Contents

A B C

  • Civilized people – Muslims, Christians, and Jews – all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator. -John Ashcroft (Attorney General)
  • A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. —Francis Bacon
  • A man may go into the field and say his prayer and be aware of God, or, he may be in Church and be aware of God; but, if he is more aware of Him because he is in a quiet place, that is his own deficiency and not due to God, Who is alike present in all things and places, and is willing to give Himself everywhere so far as lies in Him. He knows God rightly who knows Him everywhere. —Meister Eckhart
  • All that we refrain from and all that we do, let us not do or refrain from merely because it seems to the multitude somehow honorable or base, but because it is forbidden by reason and the god within us. —Marcus Aurelius
  • All things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy; and there is hardly anything unconnected with any other things. For things have been co-ordinated, and they combine to make up the same universe. For there is one universe made up of all things, and one God who pervades all things, and one substance, and one law, and one reason. —Marcus Aurelius
  • Atheism leads not to badness, but only to an incurable sadness and loneliness. -William Pepperell Montague
  • Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; Unbelief, in denying them. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. -Albert Einstein
  • Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me ... That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave. —Stonewall Jackson
  • Creation is too grand, too glorious, too complex and too mysterious to be captured in any narrow creed or reflected in any single metaphor. It is exactly because we so cherish the world in all its multi-hued grandeur that we resist the temptation to see it through only one lens. Our conviction is that we will come a little closer to the truth about the world -- and certainly be more receptive to its splendour if we set a variety of vehicles to apprehend it. -William F. Schultz
  • Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not in God Himself. -Miguel de Unamuno

D through L

  • Deep, solemn optimism, it seems to me, should spring from this firm belief in the presence of God in the individual; not a remote, unapproachable governor of the universe, but a God who is very near every one of us, who is present not only in earth, sea and sky, but also in every pure and noble impulse of our hearts, 'the source and centre of all minds, their only point of rest'. —Helen Keller
  • Even as a tree has a single trunk but many branches and leaves, there is one religion —- human religion -— but any number of faiths. —Mahatma Gandhi
  • Even in the slightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in different ways. —Black Elk
  • For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love. —John Donne
  • Freedom from all attachment is the realization of God as Truth. —Mahatma Gandhi
  • He who steadily observes the moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all differ. —Thomas Jefferson
  • Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being ... When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. —Mahatma Gandhi
  • I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of humans; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy. —Thomas Paine
  • I believe it is a sacred duty to encourage ourselves and others; to hold the tongue from any unhappy word against God's world, because no man has any right to complain of a universe which God made good, and which thousands of men have striven to keep good. I believe we should so act that we may draw nearer and more near the age when no man shall live at his ease while another suffers. These are the articles of my faith, and there is yet another on which all depends -— to bear this faith above every tempest which overfloods it, and to make it a principal in disaster and through affliction. Optimism is the harmony between man's spirit and of God pronouncing His works good. —Helen Keller
  • I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing. -Umberto Eco
  • I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt. - Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650)
  • I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were (permanent) Seekers after Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment--until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. That was the end of the search. The man spent the rest of his life hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather. If he was seeking after political Truth he found it in one or another of the hundred political gospels which govern men in the earth; if he was seeking after the Only True Religion he found it in one or another of the three thousand that are on the market. In any case, when he found the Truth he sought no further; but from that day forth, with his soldering-iron in one hand and his bludgeon in the other he tinkered its leaks and reasoned with objectors. (from What is Man?) - Mark Twain
  • I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. —Thomas Jefferson
  • I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given. —Emily Dickinson
  • I saw my Lord with the Eye of my heart, And I said: Truly there is no doubt that it is You. It is You that I see in everything; And I do not see You through anything (but You). —Al-Hallaj
  • I saw a marvellous high mystery hid in God, which mystery He shall openly make known to us in Heaven: in which knowing we shall verily see the cause why He suffered sin to come. In which sight we shall endlessly joy in our Lord God. —Julian of Norwich
  • I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name... —Walt Whitman (in Leaves of Grass)
  • In my religion there would be no exclusive doctrine; all would be love, poetry and doubt. —Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave (1945)
  • ...it may be that there is no God, that "the existence of all that is beautiful and in any sense good is but the accidental and ineffective byproduct of blindly swirling atoms," that we are alone in a world that cares nothing for us or for the values that we create and sustain - that we and they are here for a moment only, and gone, and that eventually there will be left no trace of us in the universe. "A man may well believe that this dredful thing is true. But only the fool will say in his heart that he is glad that it is true. - Sterling M. McMurrin
  • It was in a flood God destroyed all but one man. It would seem prudent that he now knows better --Anonymous
  • “[J]ust as the illiterate cannot read books like those who are literate, neither can those who have refused to go through the commandments of Christ by practicing them be granted the revelation of the Holy Spirit like those who have brooded over them and fulfilled them and shed their blood for them.” — St. Symeon the New Theologian, “On Spiritual Knowledge” - Discourse 24 (in the Paulist Press ed.)
  • Let's reinvent the gods, all the myths of the ages Celebrate symbols from deep elder forests... —Jim Morrison, from the spoken-word album, An American Prayer (1978), released posthumously
  • "[The] liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will [is] a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be it's best support." -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Captain John thomas, Nov.18, 1801 (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, A.E. Bergh, editor, Washington D.C. 1904, Vol.XVI, p.436)

M through Z

  • Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensations which tells you this is something you've always known. —Frank Herbert (in Dune)
  • My effort should never be to undermine another's faith but to make him a better follower of his own faith. —Mahatma Gandhi
  • My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. -Albert Einstein
  • No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere : I see Heaven's glories shine, And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear. —Emily Brontë
  • O great creator of being grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives. —Jim Morrison, from the spoken-word album An American Prayer
  • Once you accept the existence of God —- however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him -— then you are caught forever with his presence in the center of all things. —Morris West
  • Our times are in his hand Who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!" —Robert Browning
  • Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. —James 1:27, New Testament
  • Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Religion itself is nothing else but Love to God and Man. He that lives in Love lives in God, says the Beloved Disciple: And to be sure a Man can live no where better. —William Penn
  • Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life. -William James
  • ...resident mockery give us an hour for magic. —Jim Morrison, from the spoken-word album An American Prayer
  • Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. -Albert Einstein
  • That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. —Alfred, Lord Tennyson
  • The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. —G.K. Chesterton
  • The cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research. —Albert Einstein
  • The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will. -Adolf Hitler, - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim translation p. 562.
  • The moral sense reappears today with the same morning newness that has been from of old the fountain of beauty and strength. You say there is no religion now. 'Tis like saying in rainy weather, There is no sun, when at that moment we are witnessing one of its superlative effects. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always. -Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)
  • The whole duty of humanity, from a Christian perspective is: "To know God and to show God." -James Patterson
  • There is surely a piece of divinity within us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun. —Thomas Browne
  • Though earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee. —Emily Brontë
  • To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning. —Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell. —John Adams (The italicized quotation within this statement has often been quoted out of context.)
  • We have now learned from our generalizations of the great complexity of the interactions of principles... that what is approached is eternal and instant awareness of absolute reality of all that ever existed. All the great metaphysical integrity of all the individuals, which is potential and inherent in the complex interactions of generalized principles, will always and only coexist eternally. —Buckminster Fuller
  • We must forgive our enemies. I can truly say that not a day has passed since the war began that I have not prayed for them. — General Robert E. Lee
  • What do I know about God and the purpose of life? I know that this world exists. —Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan —- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations. — Abraham Lincoln
  • You and I didn't design people. God designed people. What I am trying to do is to discover why God included humans in the Universe. —Buckminster Fuller

See also

Look up religious in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Category: Religion
from: Wikiquote: religious,
Tue May 8 17:51:07 2012
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