Religion - Quotes from Science Fiction

A lot of quotations carefully collected from a very big amount of books and divided by categories.

Have fun reading it, this is really interesting and breathtaking!

What good is religion if it collapses at calamity?

- H. G.Wells, TheWar of theWorlds (1898)

Whenever things are so that a lot of people feel they ought to be doing something, the weak, and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinking, always make for a sort of do-nothing religion, very pious and superior, and submit to persecution and the will of the Lord.

- H. G.Wells, TheWar of theWorlds (1898)

She made a sort of chart, superimposing the different religions as I described them, with a pin run through them all, as it were; their common basis being a Dominant Power or Powers, and some Special Behavior, mostly taboos, to please or placate. There were some common features in certain groups of religions, but the one always present was this Power, and the things which must be done or not done because of it.

- Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915)

Heretics are the only (bitter) remedy against the entropy of human thought.

- Yevgeny Zamiatin, ''On Literature, Revolution, Entropy, and Other Matters'' (1923), translated by Mirra Ginsburg (1970)

It is possible that many religions are moderately true.

- James Hilton, Lost Horizon (1933)

You show me ten men who cherish some religious doctrine or political ideology, and I'll show you nine men whose minds are utterly impervious to any factual evidence which contradicts their beliefs, and who regard the producer of such evidence as a criminal who ought to be suppressed.

- H. Beam Piper, ''Last Enemy'' (1950)

Throughout the earlier part of its history, the human race had brought forth an endless succession of prophets, seers, messiahs, and evangelists who convinced themselves and their followers that to them alone were the secrets of the Universe revealed. [. . .] The rise of science, which with monotonous regularity refuted the cosmologies of the prophets and produced miracles which they could never match, eventually destroyed all these faiths. It did not destroy the awe, nor the reverence and humility, which all intelligent beings felt as they contemplated the stupendous Universe in which they found themselves.What it did weaken, and finally obliterate, were the countless religions, each of which claimed, with unbelievable arrogance, that it was the sole repository of the truth and that its millions of rivals and predecessors were all mistaken.

- Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars (1956)

''The spectacle of demagogues sending millions of people to their deaths, wrecking the world with holy wars and bloodshed, tearing down whole nations to put over some religious or political 'truth' is - '' He shrugged. ''Obscene. Filthy.''

- Philip K. Dick, TheWorld Jones Made (1956)

For me, biology is an act of religion, because I know that all creatures are God's - each new planet, with all its manifestations, is an affirmation of God's power.

- James Blish, A Case of Conscience (1958)

The trouble with being a priest was that you eventually had to take the advice you gave to others.

- Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959)

People are prone to new religions at two periods. First, in the beginning when luxuries are almost unknown, life hard and the simple virtues a necessity. [. . .] The second period when people are particularly prone to religion is during their decadence.

- Mack Reynolds, ''Russkies Go Home!'' (1960)

Being religious is often a form of conceit. The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was ''saved,'' they were ''damned''

- we were in a state of grace and the rest were ''heathens.'' [. . .] 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 some Judgment Day.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

Man is so built that he cannot imagine his own death. This leads to endless invention of religions.While this conviction by no means proves immortality to be a fact, questions generated by it are overwhelmingly important. The nature of life, how ego hooks into the body, the problem of ego itself and why each ego seems to be the center of the universe, the purpose of life, the purpose of the universe - these are paramount questions, Ben; they can never be trivial. Science hasn't solved them - and who am I to sneer at religions for trying, no matter how unconvincingly to me?

- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

Repression makes a religion flourish.

- Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)

Nothing about religion is simple.

- Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)

Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.

- Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)

''There is a Oneness from which all life stems,'' someone said gently behind Kirby. ''The infinite variety of the universe we owe to - '' Another voice said, ''Man and woman, star and stone, tree and bird - '' Another said, ''In the strength of the spectrum, the quantum, and the holy angstrom - '' Kirby did not remain to listen to the familiar prayers, nor did he pray himself.

- Robert Silverberg, ''Open the Sky'' (1966)

Yesterday's monomaniac is tomorrow's messiah.

- Philip Jose Farmer, ''Riders of the PurpleWage'' (1967)

Religion was the creation of fear. Knowledge destroys fear.Without fear, religion can't survive.

- Michael Moorcock, ''Behold the Man'' (1967)

Religion is a reasonable substitute for knowledge. But there is no longer any need for substitutes, Karl. Science offers a sounder basis on which to formulate systems of thought and ethics.

- Michael Moorcock, ''Behold the Man'' (1967)

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973)

Melissa had always liked churches. In a world filled with change and death, church was a familiar haven, a resting place for embattled innocents to prepare for fresh encounters with a hostile world.

- P. J. Plauger, ''Child of All Ages'' (1975)

Churches and the Cosa Nostra have something in common: a sort of pristine indifference at the very top levels. All the malignant chores fall to the smallfries down at the bottom.

- Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny, Deus Irae (1976)

A continuity exists between inert matter, through the grand design of the early universe, and intelligent life today. Now accepted by all, this cosmic perspective may be seen as a culmination of all the ancient religions.

- Gregory Benford, ''Starswarmer'' (1978)

A religion is sometimes 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.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Friday (1982)

Christians are quite as foolish as other people, you know.

- Joanna Russ, ''Souls'' (1982)

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.

- Robert A. Heinlein, To Sail beyond the Sunset (1987)

The Christians as I understand them want to save mankind from sin without first understanding either sin or mankind.

- George Turner, Drowning Towers (1987)

She once described Christianity as too narrow a slit through which to watch the world.

- George Turner, Drowning Towers (1987)

A small war broke out between those who worshipped the Mother Goddess in her aspect of the Moon and those who worshipped her in her aspect of a huge fat woman with enormous buttocks. After that the masters intervened and explained that religion, while a fine thing, could be taken too far.

- Terry Pratchett, Pyramids (1989)

All she knew was that there was more to the world than what could be perceived with the five senses and that she couldn't accept that Mystery as having its source in some power-hungry god whose church's creeds were based on denial of all secular matters, as though the beauty of this world was not a thing to be cherished for its own sake, but was rather a testing ground for how one would or would not be rewarded in the afterlife.

- Charles De Lint, Spiritwalk (1992)