Robert A. Heinlein Quotes About Religion
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Of all the strange 'crimes' that human beings have legislated out of nothing, 'blasphemy' is the most amazing -- with 'obscenity' and 'indecent exposure' fighting it out for second and third place.
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A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the lord in vain- then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?
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If you pray hard enough, water will run uphill. How hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!
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But I contend that the disgusting behavior of many of their alleged 'holy men' relieves us of any intellectual obligation to take the stuff seriously. No amount of sanctimonious rationalization can make such behavior anything but pathological.
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The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history.
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He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings, but short words were slippery, unpredictable changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian word - such as grok which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife. And this had been a very short word.
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Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense.
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There is an old, old story about a theologian who was asked to reconcile the Doctrine of Divine Mercy with the doctrine of infant damnation. 'The Almighty,' he explained, 'finds it necessary to do things in His official and public capacity which in His private and personal capacity He deplores.
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Don't appeal to mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he's not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy- live or die- is strictly your business and the universe doesn't care. In fact you may be the universe and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it- 'Thou art God!'
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The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was saved, they were damned.... Our hymns were loaded with arrogance - self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day.
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Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.
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I've never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one true religion by faith-it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.
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One man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word.
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Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
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One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
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Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything.
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It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
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History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
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The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it.
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A religion is a source of happiness and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong--and you are strong. The great trouble with religion--any religion--is that the religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge these propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason--but one cannot have both.
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Whores perform the same function as priests, but far more thoroughly.
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Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
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The nice thing about citing god as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove.
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The Ten Commandments are for lame brains. The first five are solely for the benefit of the priests and the powers that be; the second five are half truths, neither complete nor adequate.
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God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.
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Men rarely if ever dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
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God split himself into a myriad parts that he might have friends. This may not be true, but it sounds good, and is no sillier than any other theology.
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Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.
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