Taming the Violence of Faith Quotes

“For thousands of years, spiritual leaders have praised a creed that has ignited more organized violence, more systemized terror, more legalized murder, than any other idea in religious history. This”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“Building on the discovery of social causation through independent observation and verification this book presents a viable strategy for taming the violence unleashed on innocent people by religious and political institutions, and introduces the reader to a wealth of Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“Those who embrace the paradigm of religious superiority have an unshakable faith that they are favored by the one true god of the one true religion. They”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“Unfortunately, the most dangerous paradigm in religious history has rendered nearly every believer in its truth to be a potential danger or danger to all humans on earth. Nearly all religious leaders and their faithful followers have embraced this prized paradigm. It avows that their religion is the only true religion recognized by the only true god. Islam”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“The paradigm shift from belief in many true gods to belief in one true god would soon incite social tragedies on a monumental scale.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“Europeans and Americans remembered World War I, but their memory of its horrible devastation was not enough to keep them out of the even greater disaster of World War II. For Americans, their memory of the global carnage of World War II was not enough to bar them from the Vietnam War. As we have seen, memory alone of the matchless horrors of war is not enough to obsolete human warfare as a strategy for resolving international disputes.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“Without ever saying so, many intelligent people think, “Who am I to challenge authority and question whether our social leaders know what they are doing, where they are going, and how to get there?” Thus, a vital message must be dramatized to gain the attention of decent people. To follow the leader by default without verifying the equity, utility, and morality of the leadership through observational analysis is to bury our heads in the sand and to risk human extinction.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“One of the most catastrophic wars of European history was the notorious Thirty Years’ War. It was fought between Catholics and Protestants over an incredible thirty years of organized butchery, violence, and destruction to decide one outcome: Who will monopolize control of all religious and political institutions in Europe, the anti-Catholic Protestants or the anti-Protestant Catholics? Prof.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“In any society where the most respected people commit the most horrific crimes, such a society is a win-lose society that is seriously flawed.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“As a religious leader, Jesus was an ardent advocate of nonviolence. He scrupulously avoided involvement in either military or political leadership, which historically had been associated with organized violence for win-lose gain. Six”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“When good guys with good minds and good schooling misidentify and misunderstand which social causes lead to which social effects—and thereby act on flawed paradigms of causality—a deadly die is cast. Again,”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“Believers tend to elevate themselves to an elite society of followers who are worthier than those who do not believe. Those”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“Human faith is a governor of human choice, and human choice is the source of human power. Humans can wield win-win power for mutual gain, or win-lose power for coercive gain. It is our choice.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“Theological disputes over the true meaning of divine commands have incited social tragedies that defy description. They have spurred true believers—who know their god is supreme—into murdering millions upon millions of disbelievers and so-called heretics. Heretics”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“Remembering the past must be combined with understanding the past to be of any lasting value. Where”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“As long as conventional wisdom fails to identify, clarify, and verify the fundamental and necessary causes of war, war remains a persistent and unrelenting threat to the advance of peace, prosperity, and freedom.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“The religious protests of sixteenth-century Europe—known as the Protestant Reformation—aimed to reform the Roman Catholic Church by ending its monopolistic authority over all Christian institutions. Since the division that followed between Catholics and dissenting Protestants, Christians have been killing each other with the same passion for religious violence as the Muslims.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“During the Crusades, Christian warriors, fighting for their one true god, were busy slaying infidels—non-Christians—throughout the Holy Land. With little or no mercy, devout Christians imprisoned, tortured, and killed Moslems and Jews. Yet, what did these Christian believers hold to be true? They believed in the rightness of persecuting disbelievers in the one true god—the omnipotent and just god of the Old and New Testaments.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“When religious activists seek the blessings of peace, prosperity, and freedom by taking coercive action for win-lose gain, which will only advance war, poverty, and servitude—whether they are religious or not, intelligent or not, educated or not—they don’t know what they are doing!”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis