#secular

If the decline of Christianity created the modern political zealot - and his crimes - so the evaporation of religious faith among the educated left a vacuum in the minds of Western intellectuals easily filled by secular superstition. There is no other explanation for the credulity with which scientists, accustomed to evaluating evidence, and writers, whose whole function was to study and criticize society, accepted the crudest Stalinist propaganda at its face value. They needed to believe; they wanted to be duped. ↗

— Paul Johnson

#education

If you know that I am an unbeliever, then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief. ↗

— Pier Paolo Pasolini

#religion #secularity #spirituality #religion

Misstraue jedem Politiker, jedem Regierungs- oder Staatschef, der seine Religion zum Instrument macht. Halte Abstand von solchen Politikern, die ihre auf das Jenseits orientierte Religion und ihre diesseitige Politik miteinander vermischen. ↗

— Helmut Schmidt

#fundamentalism #politics #religion #secularism #religion

Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas. ↗

— Ronald Reagan

#secular #separation-of-church-and-state #teacher

The real question is how much suffering we've caused our womenfolk by turning headscarves into symbols - and using women as pawns in a political game. ↗

— Orhan Pamuk

#politics #secularism #islam

Half of the secular unrest and dismal, profane sadness of modern society comes from the vain ideas that every man is bound to be a critic for life. ↗

— Henry Van Dyke

#comes #critic #dismal #every #every man

I decided to take God and organized religion seriously, and to reject the secular life which in my teens had looked attractive because it allowed me to act in any way that I wanted. ↗

— Luke Ford

#allowed #any #attractive #because #decided

In our increasingly secular society, with so many disparate gods and different faiths, superhero films present a unique canvas upon which our shared hopes, dreams and apocalyptic nightmares can be projected and played out. ↗

— Tom Hiddleston

#different #different faiths #disparate #dreams #faiths

It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#cards #christmas #friends #holiday #how

The secular argument, or the liberal argument, is to as much as possible remove taboos so things do not become unmentionable; to let some air into the discussion. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#argument #become #discussion #into #liberal