Treatise on the Gods Quotes

“Magic or religion: it is all one.”

“Wikipedia: Treatise on the Gods”

“The birds and insects... are highly scientific... in inventiveness they are they are far superior to all mammals save man.”

“In its pure and simple form religion is not often encountered today. It is almost as rare, indeed, as pure democracy or pure reason.”

“Every religion, if it survives long enough, changes its ceremonials, and every one of them borrows constantly from the others.”

“It may be that there are magicians who are not also priests, but it would be hard to find a priest who is not, in some sense, a magician.”

“It is highly probable that the first priest appeared to the world simultaneously with the first religion; nay, that he actually invented it.”

“Their [the theologians'] earliest forerunners... were aware of no difference between magic and religion, but practiced both with easy consciences.”

“To primitive man thinking was even more unpalatable than it is to the modern Christians. He did it badly, as they do, and his brief experience of it had taught him that it brought only woe.”

“The conquered knew quite well what had happened; their gods, in a fair fight, had turned out to be weaker than the gods of the other fellows. So it was probably common for them to come over to their notion...”

“The moment one priest turned into two all these qualifications for kingship went for naught, for one was destroyed that was greater than all of them, and that was the character of a single and indivisible man.”

“The simple savages of those days had not yet formulated the concept of government by committee; they wanted to be led... They were yet close cousins to the brutes who hunted in packs, always with one leader.”

“...there is really no need for the gentlemen of the cloth to be alarmed, for not too many human beings... are fit for encounters with the gods. The rest prefer to transact their business at a distance and through intermediaries.”

“The patriotism of a priest is like the patriotism of a stock-broker. When he is found questioning the established order it usually develops, upon inquiry, that he is also questioning the tenets of the church, and he is on his way to heresy.”

“Christianity leans upon supernaturalism more heavily than any of its principal rivals, and there is in it, even in its more refined forms, a great deal that is irrational and incredible.”

“The great religious reformers have never preached the liberation of the masses. Luther, John Calvin and John Wesley were all on the side of authority. The Catholic church is for it everywhere today, and the more intransigent it is the better the church likes it.”

“In "Religion in the Making," by A. N. Whitehead... the approach is philosophical, and there are many interesting and valuable observations. But Dr. Whitehead occasionally indulges himself, like all metaphysicians, in what has a suspicious resemblance to nonsense.”

“The ancient and curious thing called religion, as it shows itself in the modern world, is often so overladen with excrescences and irrelevancies that its fundamental nature tends to be obscured.”

“If all the faithful inclined to mysticism, and had a talent for it, there would be empty pews in the churches and the whole ecclesiastical structure would begin to rock. But... a downright prohibition of mysticism would be only too plainly a prohibition of religion.”

“The essence of mysticism is that it breaks down all barriers between the devotee and his god, and thereby makes the act of worship a direct and personal matter. ...without the aid of any human agent, he comes face to face with his god, and can make his wants known directly.”