Religious bigotry

“ Religious bigotry is more intolerant than any other power of dominion, and where the mind and conscience is trammelled, and brought under the subjection of superior intellect, the masses become almost as menials, ready to do their masters' bidding. ”

“ One of the forms of prejudice which afflict the world of mankind is religious bigotry and fanaticism. When this hatred burns in human hearts, it becomes the cause of revolution, destruction, abasement of humankind and deprivation of the mercy of God. For the holy Manifestations and divine Founders of religion Themselves were completely unified in love and agreement, whereas Their followers are characterized by bitter antagonism and attitudes of hostility toward each other. ”

“ It cannot but be that they would: and many persons will probably be disposed to say, "why should they not?" The answer is, that if religious indifference is likely to be the result of the other system, religious bigotry and fanaticism is the assured fruit of this. ”

“ There is not a spot upon the globe where there is not some form of religious persecution. Nor is there any thing more sincere than religious bigotry. And where people have not fundamental principles to fight about, they will fight about technicalities and matters of no account, and all the more bitterly sometimes when the objects of contention are not worth fighting about at all,—as in forms of worship, or baptism. ”

“ This industrial life, otherwise so worthily cultivated, is disturbed by manifestations of religious bigotry which sadly tarnish the glory of the really heroic deeds they are intended to commemorate. It is impossible for any close observer of these deplorable exhibitions to avoid the conclusion that the embers of the old fires are too often fanned by men who are actuated by motives, which, when not other than religious, are certainly based upon an unworthy conception of religion. ”

“ When one considers what effect the perversion of the religious instinct has had during the history of the world; the bitter wars, Christian and Mahomedan, Catholic and Protestant; the persecutions, the torturings, the domestic hatreds, the petty spites, with ALL creeds equally blood-guilty, one cannot but be amazed that the concurrent voice of mankind has not placed bigotry at the very head of the deadly sins. It is surely a truism to say that neither smallpox nor the plague have brought the same misery upon mankind. ”

“ Again, I would ask in all seriousness, by what right does Orthodoxy give the invidious name of Infidel, affix the stigma of infidelity, to those who dissent from its cherished opinions? What right have the advocates of moral reform, woman's rights, abolition, temperance, etc., to call in question any man's religious opinions? It is the assumption of bigots. I do not want now to speak invidiously, and say sectarian bigots, but I mean the same kind of bigotry which Jesus rebuked so sharply, when He called certain men "blind leaders of the blind." ”

“ This has been done in numerous instances; and when a note of warning is raised by the true friends of civil and religious liberty, they are treated as bigots by those very men who are contributing of their substance to diffuse and foster the most intolerant system of bigotry, and cruel, unrelenting despotism, the world has ever seen. Other sects have persecuted during some periods of their history ”

“ If a man's sentiments and practice in religious matters, appear even absurd, provided society is not injured, what right hath the magistrate to interfere?
The task is as easy to make the stream run upwards, as to form a nation of one mind. We may pronounce with confidence, an age of bigotry is no age of philosophy. ”

“ A somewhat careful study of the rise and progress of all religions, and of all religious sects, convinces us that bigotry, intolerance, and persecution are alike common to all whenever they hold absolute power, and that in this respect the Catholics are no worse than others. ”

“ It is true that the masses still cherished a portion of their former religious bigotry, but from year to year it has been giving way to move liberal sentiments, and foreigners never encountered any difficulty to remain on the score of religion, so long as they respected the prejudices of the people. ”

“ The cause of these crimes is sought for by some people in religious bigotry; others look with suspicion on the black population; and some, not without grounds, have attributed these diabolical deeds to some unprincipled white people of even respectable connections. ”

“ Some of the unhappy assertors of this strange scheme say they are not persecutors on account of religion. In the first place, they say what is not true. For what else do they disfranchise the people? If the man gets rid of a religion through which their malice operates, he gets rid of all their penalties and incapacities at once. They never afterwards inquire about him. I speak here of their pretexts, and not of the true spirit of the transaction, in which religious bigotry, I apprehend, has little share. Every man has his taste ”

“ Verse 39
Forbid him not - If you meet him again, let him go on quietly in the work in which God owns him. If he were not of God, the demons would not be subject to him, and his work could not prosper. A spirit of bigotry has little countenance from these passages. There are some who are so outrageously wedded to their own creed, and religious system, that they would rather let sinners perish than suffer those who differ from them to become the instruments of their salvation. Even the good that is done they either deny or suspect, because the person does not follow them. ”

“ So with us, those who minister to men in their moral trials have for the most part a deeper moral spirit, and are less apt to place religion in systems of propositions. The robur legionum of bigotry, I believe, is found,—first, in non-parochial clergy, and next in the anonymous writers for religious journals and "conservative" newspapers; who too generally [3] adopt a style of which they would be ashamed, if the names of the writers were attached; who often seem desirous to make it clear that it is their trade to carp, insult, or slander ”

“ And when this flaming zeal, in more quiet times, has settled down, it does not therefore always cease to exist, but stiffens into bigotry, and, united with that self-importance which is so natural to man, produces an exclusiveness and a Pharisaism of which all Christian Churches, in seeming rivalry of the Jews, whom they revile, have presented a very sharp and well-marked adumbration. If the religious Hindu will not eat from a Christian’s platter, the religious Episcopalian will not dine in the same room or stand on the same platform with the religious Dissenter. ”

“ Bitter internecine hatreds, based on such differences, are signs, not of earnestness of belief, but of that fanaticism which, whether religious or anti-religious, democratic or anti-democratic, is itself but a manifestation of the gloomy bigotry which has been the chief factor in the downfall of so many, many nations. ”

“ The bigotry of sectarianism, which is of ofttimes so trying, should be classed with other sins which the Gospel, rightly preached and broadly illustrated, will in time remove; and, if under educational influence, the negro kindles more slowly to religious zeal, he will doubtless burn more steadily, and in the end yield more light and heat.
TEACHER OR MISSIONARY, WHICH? The Natal Mercury, South Africa, paints a dark picture of the Caffres, even of those who have professed Christianity. ”

“ The ardour of my feelings may impel me to become zealous in the cause of vital godliness, but I feel such an aversion to bigotry, that I do not think that I shall ever become a bigot. To me the questions of conformity and non-conformity, of church and dissent, are so insignificant and worthless, when put into comparison with the vital Christianity of the Bible, that I dismiss them from my mind. ”

“ As you well know I am comparatively no bigot to any creed, political or theological, yet to tell the plain truth, I look upon your notions of government and religious perfection as downright fanaticism—as harmless as they are absurd. ”

“ This unlovely bigotry narrows the range of the intellect—perverts and contracts the best affections—and, under its influence, even good men forget the charities of their renewed nature, and sometimes prostitute their talents to bear false witness against each other. To this bigotry, that religion, whose very essence is love, is directly opposed. Christians who imbibe the spirit of the New Testament, and who suffer that holy book to operate with full force upon their minds, are distinguished by a noble freedom from sectarian antipathies. ”

“ Ghiaour! or Infidel! Infidel!—Men of dignity and rank, indeed, will treat Christians with courtesy; but as soon as they are gone out of hearing, will call them Dog! This is monstrous! But let us recollect how a Turk would be treated in Spain or Portugal, and we shall see that inhuman bigotry may be found in a greater degree among Christians than even Mahomedans. ”

“ The true religion is neither confined to one spot nor to one people; it is spread in various forms over the whole earth. He who fills immensity has left a record of himself in every nation and among every people under heaven. Beware of the spirit of intolerance! for bigotry produces uncharitableness; and uncharitableness, harsh judging; and in such a spirit a man may think he does God service when he tortures, or makes a burnt-offering of the person whom his narrow mind and hard heart have dishonored with the name of heretic. ”

“ If Christian ministers in the bazars can preach against Muhamedanism and Hinduism; if they can write books to destroy these religions, why should they object to an investigation of their own creeds? They talk of the intolerance and bigotry of the Muhamedans, but who so intolerant as the Christians? Let one of their number leave their ranks with all honesty and good intention. ”

“ We take the position that Christianity itself is essentially intolerant and persecuting in spirit; and, we take the New Testament itself to prove it. We take Christ's alleged words as reported there, and Paul's alleged words as reported there, and can thereby abundantly sustain our charge. "He that believeth not shall be damned." "A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition, reject." What is that but the quintessence of bigotry and intolerance? ”

“ It is to be lamented that the same people possessed a degree of bigotry in religion, and a spirit of intolerance, which their enlightened posterity will view with regret. During this period of prosperity, the government maintained the severity of its institutions against all those who dissented from the church; and exerted itself assiduously in what was thought the holy work of punishing heretics, and introducing conformity in matters of faith. ”

“ Do you think that a blessing of that kind—that a victory obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression, should have a stigma cast upon it, by an ignominious sentence upon men bold enough and honest enough to propose that measure;—to propose the redeeming of religion from the abuses of the church, the reclaiming of three millions of men from bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a right to demand it ”

“ Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage.
Surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no lock, no cell, in which for one instant to confine a thought; that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. ”

“ That’s how they stoke fear. That’s how they recruit. And just as Muslims around the world have to keep rejecting any twisted interpretation of Islam, all of us have to reject bigotry—in all of its forms. ”

“ What is boasted of at the present time as the revival of religion, is always, in narrow and uncultivated minds, at least as much the revival of bigotry; and where there is the strongest permanent leaven of intolerance in the feelings of a people, which at all times abides in the middle classes of this country, it needs but little to provoke them into actively persecuting those whom they have never ceased to think proper objects of persecution. ”

“ Much more did I lament, that a people of manners and dispositions so gentle and benevolent, should either be left as they now are, immersed in the gross and uncomfortable blindness of pagan superstition, or permitted to become converts to a system of bigotry and fanaticism; which, without enlightening the mind, often debases the heart. ”

“ Public opinion should be trained to the recognition of the truth that the sacrifice of love to lucre, caste-prejudice, and bigotry is a crime against the genius of mankind, and that a marriage, vetoed by the verdict of Nature, cannot be hallowed by the mumbling of a priest. ”

“ But to what end do I argue with the bigot?—a wretch whom no philosophy can humanize, no charity soften, no religion reclaim, no miracle convert; a monster who, red with the fires of hell and bending under the crimes of earth, erects his murderous divinity upon a throne of skulls, and would gladly feed, even with a brother's blood, the cannibal appetite of his rejected altar! His very interest can not soften him into humanity. Surely if it could, no man would be found mad enough to advocate a system which cankers the very heart of society and undermines the natural resources of government ”

“ The spirit of our religious life, which is one with our national life, is not hatred of aught but wrong. The Masters have said, an offence against man is worse than an offence against God. But what wonder if there is hatred in the breasts of Jews, who are children of the ignorant and oppressed—what wonder, since there is hatred in the breasts of Christians? ”

“ If the bigot conquers he will learn in time his mistaken methods (for it is only of the methods and not of the goal of Germany that one can disapprove) —just as the early Christian bigots conquered by bigotry and grew larger in sympathy and tolerance after conquest. ”