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Religion Quotes by Reza Aslan

43 Religion quotes by Reza Aslan

All Religion quotes Reza Aslan’s page

Reza Aslan explains that religion is a story about faith, not the same as faith itself. He points out that bigots often hide behind religion to push their own ideas. He also notes that the Quran serves as the basis for Arabic grammar, much like Homer does for Greek.

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“But no religion is inherently violent or peaceful; people are violent or peaceful.”

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You can be a follower of Jesus and not necessarily be a Christian.

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The language of religion holds the most currency for the masses.

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Religion, it must be understood, is not faith. Religion is the story of faith.

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When you forcefully suppress religious nationalism, you radicalize it.

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“Faith is a choice; anyone who says otherwise is trying to convert you.”

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The New Testament is not a historical document.

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Should I act violently in defense of my religion, absolutely.

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The truth of the matter is that when you write about religion like I do, you're writing about something that people take…

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The only question that matters with regard to a religion and its mythology is “What do these stories mean?

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Religion is, by definition, interpretation; and by definition, all interpretations are valid. However, some interpretations are more reasonable than others.

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Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.

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Is it possible that Jesus, unlike 98 percent of his fellow Jews, was literate and educated? Yes, it's possible.

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I think if you place Jesus firmly in the historical context... you can make very educated hypotheses and guesses about how he…

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There's this notion that Republicans are the party of Jesus and the Democrats are the Godless party. Let's be clear for a…

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Mike Huckabee and indeed many of the Christian conservatives in the U.S. have far more in common with the Muslim Brotherhood than…

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Religion is never going to go away, and anyone who thinks it will doesn't understand what religion is. It is a language…

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“Religion is concerned not with genuine history, but with sacred history, which does not course through time like a river. Rather, sacred…

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“As a text, the Quran is more than the foundation of the Islamic religion; it is the source of Arabic grammar. It…

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Well, to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament and fluency in…

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I'm interested in the origins of the religious experience, how the history of religion has evolved over the last umpteen thousand years,…

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For an academic to launch a public conversation about journalistic integrity, the role of religion in society, scholarship and faith is a…

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If you ask a Saudi Imam why women in Saudi Arabia can't drive, he'll say, 'Because Islam demands it.' But that's absurd,…

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“That, more than anything else, explains why, throughout human history, religion has been a force both for boundless good and for unspeakable…

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“Thus began the long process of transforming Jesus from a revolutionary Jewish nationalist into a peaceful spiritual leader with no interest in…

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“An individual enters the final stages of the Way when the nafs begins to release its grip on the qalb, thus allowing…

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“This is an extremely difficult matter for modern readers of the gospels to grasp, but Luke never meant for his story about…

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“All religions are inextricably bound to the social, spiritual, and cultural milieux from which they arose and in which they developed. It…

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The religiously observant is lumped in with the nominal Muslim, the nominal Muslim is lumped in with the non-Muslim and the radical.…

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“Paul's portrayal of Jesus as Christ may sound familiar to contemporary Christians—it has since become the standard doctrine of the church—but it…

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“The choice between James’s vision of a Jewish religion anchored in the Law of Moses and derived from a Jewish nationalist who…

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There were dozens of people who walked through the Holy Land claiming to be the Messiah, curing the sick, exorcising demons, challenging…

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[Islam] is the dynamic conviction that a person's spiritual and worldly responsibilities are one and the same, that an individuals duty to…

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There is absolutely no difference between religion and politics at all in Jesus' time. In other words, every seemingly religious word that…

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“There is a term for this phenomenon—politicomorphism, or “the divinization of earthly politics”—and it is, to this day, one of the central…

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Islam doesn't promote violence or peace. Islam is just a religion, and like every religion in the world, it depends on what…

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Bill Maher is right to condemn religious practices that violate fundamental human rights. Religious communities must do more to counter extremist interpretations…

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“By the time these stories were written, six decades had passed since the crucifixion. In that time, the evangelists had heard just…

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Islam is more than a religion, it's much more than a religion, it's a way of life, it is a one party…

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Paul's lack of concern with the historical Jesus is not due, as some have argued, to his emphasis on Christological rather than…

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More by Reza Aslan

“Despite two millennia of Christian apologetics, the fact is that belief in a dying and rising messiah simply did not exist in Judaism. In…

Should I act violently in defense of my religion, absolutely.

Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.

“Scattered across the Roman Empire, it was only natural for the gospel writers to distance themselves from the Jewish independence movement by erasing, as…

“There is a term for this phenomenon—politicomorphism, or “the divinization of earthly politics”—and it is, to this day, one of the central features of…

Obama has been the single worst president in modern American history in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There's no question that homophobia is rampant among the world's 1.5 billion Muslims - but that doesn't negate the fact that there are huge…

Well, to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament and fluency in Biblical Greek…

“There would be no more record of who was rich and who was poor. Everyone in this new and divinely inspired world order would…

My biography of Jesus is probably the first popular biography that does not use the New Testament as its primary source material.

The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.

“Pilate, as the histories reveal, was not one for trials. In his ten years as governor of Jerusalem, he had sent thousands upon thousands…

Is it possible that Jesus, unlike 98 percent of his fellow Jews, was literate and educated? Yes, it's possible.

“The choice between James’s vision of a Jewish religion anchored in the Law of Moses and derived from a Jewish nationalist who fought against…

“Paul's portrayal of Jesus as Christ may sound familiar to contemporary Christians—it has since become the standard doctrine of the church—but it would have…