Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, ever...yone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every ceremony or rite has a value if it is performed without alteration. A ceremony is a book in which a great deal is written. A...nyone who understands can read it. One rite often contains more than a hundred books.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or... snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... religious experience, as we have studied it, cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief. The only thing... that it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of conscience is held by the same ...tenure with all our rights. [The legislature] are bound to leave this particular right untouched and sacred, [or] we must say, that they may control freedom of the press, may abolish the trial by jury, may swallow the Executive and the Judiciary Powers of the State; nay that they may despoil us of our very right of suffrage ... or we must say, that they have no authority to enact [a religious assessment].LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[Religious liberty was] in its nature an inalienable right ... because the opinions of men, depending only upon the evidence conte...mplated by their minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[Religious establishment] is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity ... [because] with an ignoble and unchristian t...imidity it would [be] circumscribed, with a wall of defence, against the encroachments of error.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more... Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? What are thy rents? What are thy comings-in? O ceremony, show me but thy worth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What infinite heart's ease Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!... And what have kings, that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »