Religion
The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not?
I use the word Humanist to mean someone who believes that man is just as much a natural phenomenon as an animal or a plant; that his body, mind, or soul were not supernaturally created but are products of evolution, and that he is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural being, but has to rely on himself and his powers.
If anything is sacred the human body is sacred.
Your prayer must be for a sound mind in a sound body.
We should draw, from our own selves, images powerful to deny our own nothingness.
We must be our own saviors.
An honest God is the noblest work of man.
A religion of freedom, solace, and joy.
Peace and liberation of souls.
The world's religions are like lanterns of many colors. Together their light brings illumination to the soul.
We must openly accept all ideologies and systems as means of solving humanity's problems. One country, on nation, one ideology, one systems is not sufficient.
Truths for a new day: the oneness of mankind, the foundations of all religion is one, religions must be in accord with science and reason.
Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.
One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriad have believed in it. They also believed the world was flat.
To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.
Formal religion was organized for slaves; it offers them consolation which earth did not provide.
Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.
Let us have no myths of divine action.
Burning is no answer.
As long as there will be an unknown there will be a God.
Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so cannot, or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can but will not, then they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing; they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, why does it exist?
Sin is a queer thing. It isn't the breaking of divine commandments. It is the breaking of one's own integrity.
Live with men as if God saw you; converse with God as if men heard you.
In Zen enlightenment, the discovery of the "original face before you were born" is the discovery not that one sees Buddha but that one is Buddha.
The ultimate standpoint of Zen is that we have been led astray through ignorance to find a split in our own being, that there was from the very beginning no need for a struggle between the finite and the infinite, that the peace we are seeking so eagerly after has been there all the time.
Zen pushes contradictions to their ultimate limit where one has to choose between madness and innocence.
My own mind is my own church.
No doctrine, however high, however true, can make men happy until it is translated into life.
No human being can speak with authority concerning God, only conviction.
When man substituted God for the Great Goddess he at the same time substituted authoritarian for human values.
The significance of our lives and our fragile realm derives from our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We would prefer it to be otherwise, of course, but there is no compelling evidence for a cosmic Parent who will care for us and save us from ourselves.
Under the Guru's instruction regard all men as equal, since God's light is contained in the heart of each.
A present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its purity, a recovery of the divine nature.
There are moments in the lives of all men when you feel yourself completely belonging to something larger, nobler, more permanent than yourself. this experience is the religious experience.
Religion is the perception of the Divine existence.
Salvation is not putting a man into Heaven, but putting Heaven into a man.
Salvation is a process that begins on earth and ends in eternity.
The process of salvation must come from within.
As long as there is the rhythm of day and night, winter and summer, man will continue to dream, to believe in being saved. The idea of being renewed is part of the cycle - you feel it every spring.
What is most contrary to salvation is not sin but habit.
The cure for false theology is common sense.
Like the bee gathering honey from different flowers, the wise man accepts the essence of different Scriptures and sees only the good in all religions.
The uppermost idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are; the uppermost idea with Hebraism is conduct and obedience.
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