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William Robertson Smith

"Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged."

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"Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged."

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Asa Don Brown

"A satirist that criticizes religion is seen as a satanist."

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Asa Don Brown

"Most priests wish they were as righteous as they seem to most members of their congregations."

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"Only the Prince of Peace gives peace."

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Asa Don Brown

"There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion."

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Asa Don Brown

"There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise. Not Peter, not Paul, not any of those guys. He was a convicted thief, being executed. So don't knock the guys on death row. Maybe they know something you don't."

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Asa Don Brown

"A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different. So the most basic claims of religion are scientific. Religion is a scientific theory."

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Asa Don Brown

"The problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes."

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Asa Don Brown

"Keep your hope in the Lord."

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Asa Don Brown

"Religion is a cultural relic inherited from ancient civilizations that doctrinal influence persists globally in modern times. Religious people rely upon their notional belief in the primal innocence of human beings in order to support the abstract supposition of inherently benevolent God guiding human souls."

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Asa Don Brown

"Unlike most other world religions, Buddhism has never been too rigid in its structure."

Explore more quotes by William Robertson Smith

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William Robertson Smith
"The land of a god corresponds with the land of his worshipers."
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William Robertson Smith
"Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into a relation to his fellow-men; and his religion... was simply one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for him by his position as a member of society."
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William Robertson Smith
"That the God-man died for his people, and that His death is their life, is an idea which was in some degree foreshadowed by the older mystical sacrifices."
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William Robertson Smith
"The myths connected with individual sanctuaries and ceremonies were merely part of the apparatus of the worship; they served to excite the fancy and sustain the interest of the worshipper... no one cared what he believed about its origin."
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William Robertson Smith
"We are so accustomed to think of religion as a thing between individual men and God that we can hardly enter into the idea of a religion in which a whole nation in its national organisation appears as the religious unit."
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William Robertson Smith
"But, strictly speaking, this mythology was no essential part of ancient religion, for it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on the worshippers."
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William Robertson Smith
"This being so, it follows that mythology ought not to take the prominent place that is too often assigned to it in the scientific study of ancient faiths."
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William Robertson Smith
"The dissolution of the nation destroys the national religion, and dethrones the national deity."
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William Robertson Smith
"In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual."
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William Robertson Smith
"The god can no more exist without his people than the nation without its god."
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