The Faith Healers Quotes

“There used to be an intellectual class in America. . . . These people kept the world of ideas alive. But today the distinction between intellectuals and nonintellectuals doesn’t make any difference; celebrity is the only standard. . . . Everybody has become a talker of cheap philosophy that anybody can pick up.”
― James Randi, The Faith Healers

“Though all the Protestant denominations have historically condemned the veneration of holy objects (relics) and their use in healing, the Catholic church - until recently - preferred to depend entirely upon the magical qualities attributed to the possessions or actual physical parts of various saints and biblical characters for healing. The Vatican not only permitted but encouraged this practice, which entered history in the third century. Catholic churches and private collections still overflow with hundreds of thousands of items. Included are pieces of the True Cross (enough to build a few log cabins), bones of the children slain by King Herod, the toenails and bones of St. Peter, the bones of the Three Wise Kings and of St. Stephen (as well as his complete corpse, including another complete skeleton!), jars of the Virgin Mary’s milk, the bones and several entire heads and pieces thereof that were allegedly once atop John the Baptist, 16 foreskins of Christ, Mary Magdalene’s entire skeleton (with two right feet), scraps of bread and fish left over from feeding the 5,000, a crust of bread from the Last Supper, and a hair from Christ’s beard - not to mention a few shrouds, including the one at Turin.”
― James Randi, The Faith Healers

“It appears that the easy, foolproof way to get rich in America is to learn about twenty quotations from the Bible, dress in an expensive suit with lots of gaudy jewelry, and rent an auditorium. Tell all the lies you want. Exaggerate your history or invent it entirely. Label all your opponents as “tools of Satan.” Answer any and all arguments and objections by quoting scripture. Beg for money, incessantly. Oh. I almost forgot. Ordain yourself as an Anointed Minister of God. Then watch the money roll in. It’s tax-free, and you can use it any way you want.”
― James Randi, The Faith Healers

“There used to be an intellectual class in America.... These people kept the world of ideas alive. But today the distinction between intellectuals and nonintellectuals doesn’t make any difference; celebrity is the only standard.... Everybody has become a talker of cheap philosophy that anybody can pick up.”
― James Randi, The Faith Healers

“Protected by the First Amendment, anyone capable of speaking in public became eligible to dispense interpretations of holy writ and to claim healing powers. An occasional individual took his or her inspiration from vaudeville, applying psychological techniques and razzmatazz to build an act that the IRS would never trouble, Congress would never question, and the law would find insulated by the Constitution against charges of fraud and deception.”
― James Randi, The Faith Healers

“The recent intense interest in faith-healing, largely brought about by the announced possible candidacy of faith-healer Pat Robertson for the presidency of the United States, captured my interest.”
― James Randi, The Faith Healers

“In a life short and uncertain, in a time when—precisely because of the success of medicine—people die mainly from medically incurable disease, it seems heartless to deprive them of the consolation of superstition when science cannot cure their anguish. But we cannot have science in bits and pieces, applying it where we feel safe and ignoring it where we feel threatened. That way lies hypocrisy, self-deception, and a dangerously constrained future.”
― James Randi, The Faith Healers