Creeds Quotes

“...But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis—as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace.”
― Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force

“To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.”
― Robert Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

“...The Presidential election has given me less anxiety than I myself could have imagined. The next administration will be a troublesome one, to whomsoever it falls, and our John has been too much worn to contend much longer with conflicting factions. I call him our John, because, when you were at the Cul de sac at Paris, he appeared to me to be almost as much your boy as mine.

...As to the decision of your author, though I wish to see the book {Flourens’s Experiments on the functions of the nervous system in vertebrated animals}, I look upon it as a mere game at push-pin. Incision-knives will never discover the distinction between matter and spirit, or whether there is any or not. That there is an active principle of power in the universe, is apparent; but in what substance that active principle resides, is past our investigation. The faculties of our understanding are not adequate to penetrate the universe. Let us do our duty, which is to do as we would be done by; and that, one would think, could not be difficult, if we honestly aim at it.

Your university is a noble employment in your old age, and your ardor for its success does you honor; but I do not approve of your sending to Europe for tutors and professors. I do believe there are sufficient scholars in America, to fill your professorships and tutorships with more active ingenuity and independent minds than you can bring from Europe. The Europeans are all deeply tainted with prejudices, both ecclesiastical and temporal, which they can never get rid of. They are all infected with episcopal and presbyterian creeds, and confessions of faith. They all believe that great Principle which has produced this boundless universe, Newton’s universe and Herschel’s universe, came down to this little ball, to be spit upon by Jews. And until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.

I salute your fireside with best wishes and best affections for their health, wealth and prosperity.

{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 22 January, 1825}”
― John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson & Abigail & John Adams

“God's Word teaches a very hard, disturbing truth. Those who neglect the poor and the oppressed are really not God's people at all—no matter how frequently they practice their religious rituals nor how orthodox are their creeds and confessions.”
― Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity

“As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series

“As time goes on, new and remoter aspects of truth are discovered which can seldom be fitted into creeds that are changeless.”
― Clarence Day

“Holiness must have a philosophical and theological foundation, namely, Divine truth; otherwise it is sentimentality and emotionalism. Many would say later on, 'We want religion, but no creeds.' This is like saying we want healing, but no science of medicine; music, but no rules of music; history, but no documents. Religion is indeed a life, but it grows out of truth, not away from it. It has been said it makes no difference what you believe, it all depends on how you act. This is psychological nonsense, for a man acts out of his beliefs. Our Lord placed truth or belief in Him first; then came sanctification and good deeds. But here truth was not a vague ideal, but a Person. Truth was now lovable, because only a Person is lovable. Sanctity becomes the response the heart makes to Divine truth and its unlimited mercy to humanity.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ

“Atheism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a lifestyle and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and the scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds.”
― Madalyn Murray O'Hair

“At present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures upon the 'harmony of Genesis and Geology.' Like all hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like themselves. Among the great scientists they are regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies.

Surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. The time must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of Nature will outrank the 'sacred' falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all the miracles of Holy Writ.

Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?

When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

“The theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living. More than this cannot be said. About this world little is known,—about another world, nothing.

Our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were slaves. The makers of our creeds were ignorant and brutal. Every dogma that we have, has upon it the mark of whip, the rust of chain, and the ashes of fagot.

Our fathers reasoned with instruments of torture. They believed in the logic of fire and sword. They hated reason. They despised thought. They abhorred liberty.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child

“Remembering that only a few years ago men, women, and even children, were imprisoned, tortured and burned, for having expressed in an exceedingly mild and gentle way, the ideas entertained by me, I congratulate myself that calumny is now the pulpit's last resort. The old instruments of torture are kept only to gratify curiosity; the chains are rusting away, and the demolition of time has allowed even the dungeons of the Inquisition to be visited by light. The church, impotent and malicious, regrets, not the abuse, but the loss of her power, and seeks to hold by falsehood what she gained by cruelty and force, by fire and fear. Christianity cannot live in peace with any other form of faith. If that religion be true, there is but one savior, one inspired book, and but one little narrow grass-grown path that leads to heaven. Such a religion is necessarily uncompromising, unreasoning, aggressive and insolent. Christianity has held all other creeds and forms in infinite contempt, divided the world into enemies and friends, and verified the awful declaration of its founder—a declaration that wet with blood the sword he came to bring, and made the horizon of a thousand years lurid with the fagots' flames.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

“Atheism rises above creeds and puts Humanity upon one plane.
There can be no 'chosen people' in the Atheist philosophy.
There are no bended knees in Atheism;
No supplications, no prayers;
No sacrificial redemptions;
No 'divine' revelations;
No washing in the blood of the lamb;
No crusades, no massacres, no holy wars;
No heaven, no hell, no purgatory;
No silly rewards and no vindictive punishments;
No christs, and no saviors;
No devils, no ghosts and no gods.”
― Joseph Lewis, Atheism and Other Addresses

“Don't let your inner demons
Take the best of your creeds.
If God gives you lemons,
You must plant the seeds.

Do not be so self-absorbed
That you can't see the tree.
If you succumb to what's morbid
You bury your chance to be free.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, A-Z of Happiness: Tips for Living and Breaking Through the Chain that Separates You from Getting That Dream Job

“External actions are evidence of internal beliefs. Our deeds are what show our creeds.”
― Tim Hiller, Strive: Life is Short, Pursue What Matters

“[We need reforms] to make the Negro church a place where colored men and women of education and energy can work for the best things regardless of their belief or disbelief in unimportant dogmas and ancient and outworn creeds.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois

“Religious creeds are a great obstacle to any full sympathy between the outlook of the scientist and the outlook which religion is so often supposed to require ... The spirit of seeking which animates us refuses to regard any kind of creed as its goal. It would be a shock to come across a university where it was the practice of the students to recite adherence to Newton's laws of motion, to Maxwell's equations and to the electromagnetic theory of light. We should not deplore it the less if our own pet theory happened to be included, or if the list were brought up to date every few years. We should say that the students cannot possibly realise the intention of scientific training if they are taught to look on these results as things to be recited and subscribed to. Science may fall short of its ideal, and although the peril scarcely takes this extreme form, it is not always easy, particularly in popular science, to maintain our stand against creed and dogma.”
― Arthur Stanley Eddington

“Deeds are divine, not doctrines. Actions are religious, not creeds.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lord is My Sheep: Gospel of Human

“If I have a creed, this is it:
My god is language, written and read.
And there is no other god but this.”
― Aidan Chambers, This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn

“Truth doesn't pay homage to creeds. Creeds must adjust themselves to be compatible with the truth.”
― Abhijit Naskar, I Am The Thread: My Mission

“The Rev. Brown, the Wesleyan minister, sturdily declares that he cares nothing for creeds, but only for education; meanwhile, in truth, the wildest Wesleyanism is tearing his soul. The Rev. Smith, of the Church of England, explains gracefully, with the Oxford manner, that the only question for him is the prosperity and efficiency of the schools; while in truth all the evil passions of a curate are roaring within him. It is a fight of creeds masquerading as policies. I think these reverend gentlemen do themselves wrong; I think they are more pious than they will admit. Theology is not (as some suppose) expunged as an error. It is merely concealed, like a sin. Dr. Clifford really wants a theological atmosphere as much as Lord Halifax; only it is a different one.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The Gospel of Jesus Christ stilted rigid by our traditions, held a suffering captive to our denominational creeds, and parsed thin by our need to control our faith rather than submit to it is not compelling to anyone…except the ones who are so enamored with what they’ve created that they’ve forgotten that they created it.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Close your eyes, breathe in love, fill your lungs with acceptance, then open your eyes, and you won't see cultures, countries or creeds, all you will see is one family.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkanjali: The Sufi Sermon

“It is one thing to say (as we have) that the economic reveals the immanent to a degree and in a specific way—the sending of the Son reflecting the eternal generation of the Son, for example. But it is an altogether different thing to say that the economic constitutes the immanent, or that anything and everything in the economic (suffering, submission) is to be projected back into the immanent, as if what distinguishes Father from Son from Spirit are his actions in the world…. While God’s acts in history may reveal something of his triune identity, he in no way depends on history for his triune identity, nor should all that occurs in history be projected onto the Trinity’s immanent, eternal identity.”
― Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit

“Memorize some creeds, and you're religious.
Memorize some facts, and you're intellectual.
The former is religion of the old world jungle,
The latter is religion of the new world jungle.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets