Religion is no more the parent of morality than an incubator is the mother of a chicken.

Contradictory to my religion I think is journalism.

Religion is the idol of the mob it adores everything it does not understand.

When men take pleasure in feeling their minds elevated with strong drink and so indulge their appetite as to disorder their understandings neglect their duty as members of a family or civil society and cast off all regard to religion their case is much to be pitied.

I think I'm fascinated by the power of religion in our culture. Like a lot of secular liberal people I ignored it for a long time. Lately of course just from a political perspective it's impossible to ignore.

The advent of a new religion making serious and impressive claims to embody a new revelation from on high is not a frequent occurrence.

I've been a little bit obsessed with religion without being a religious person for about a decade.

I have a strong belief in God... I find religion to be a very personal thing... I am also very spiritual.

They become the keepers of the mystery. They place themselves between the communicants of the religion and the immediate experience. And then they dictate the terms on which you can have contact with this wonderful mystery. We don't dictate those terms.

So obviously any religion embodies some form of rules and expectations for behavior and even sometimes consequences and they don't want to hear any of that.