Religion Critique Quotes

“The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man.

Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world...”
― Karl Marx

“Regarding the convenient claim that Judaism avoids the “cultist” tendencies of, for example, the Roman Catholic Church, by not claiming to be “the one and only true faith,” thus allegedly allowing followers to leave the religion without penalty:

In the Olam Ha-Ba [i.e., the Messianic Age], the whole world will recognize the Jewish G-d as the only true G-d, and the Jewish religion as the only true religion (Rich, 2001).

Could one have expected any less, though, given the “chosen group” complex of the entire tradition? Of course it’s “the one true religion”! How could they be the “Chosen People” if it wasn’t?”
― Geoffrey D. Falk, Stripping the Gurus

“Mohammed was a narcissist and egoist, determined that no one else should ever rival his glory and importance and so he deliberately set out to make it impossible for any Muslim to surpass him. It was very clever for Mohammed to call himself the seal of prophets and thus for the Koran to be the last word – cutting off any future changes, and making Mohammed’s elevated status as God’s messenger permanent. The Koran is asserted to be the verbatim word of God, the last word of God, the final revelation. One has to wonder why God had to make several attempts at his revelation in the first place, using several prophets. Why not just one prophet and one revelation, explaining everything forever? Why bother with a string of Jewish prophets, before inexplicable switching to an Arab prophet to be the most important prophet of all? Muslims believe that not Mohammed but Allah was the founder of Islam. Why did Allah not simply appear to the world and declare his message? Why use these bizarre intermediaries – these strange prophets? It makes no sense at all.”
― Mike Hockney, All the Rest is Propaganda