Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

Better to be called a cult — or even a mafia.

Much of what you see in the Catholic Church today doesn't come from God's Word, it comes from that cult-like, pagan religion. Now you say, "Pastor, how can you say such a thing? That is such an indictment of the Catholic Church. After all the Catholic Church talks about God and the Bible and Jesus and the Blood of Christ and Salvation." Isn't that the genius of Satan? If you want to counterfeit a dollar bill, you don't do it with purple paper and red ink, you're not going to fool anybody with that. But if you want to counterfeit money, what you do is make it look closely related to the real thing as possible. And that's what Satan does with counterfeit religion. He uses, he steals, he appropriates all of the symbols of true biblical Christianity, and he changes it just enough in order to cause people to miss eternal life.

These are called the pious frauds of friendship.

Religion is the opium of the poor

Any amount of theology can now be smuggled into people's minds under the cover of fiction without their knowing it.

“It would be some young firebrands with more energy than sense, and they would do it because they would regard the religion in question as a kind of disease.”
“Catching, is it?”
“Seemingly so. Or, perhaps I should say, suspected to be so.”
“That could be ugly. People turn fanatic, do they? Rant and rave against the unholy? Claim to have the only source of truth? Execute people for heresy? Burn people at the stake? Shovel them wholesale into ovens?” Rasiel was a student of human history, including its more barbaric periods.

If I were designing a phony religion, I'd surely include a version of this little gem — but I'd have a hard time saying it with a straight face: <blockquote>If anybody ever raises questions of objections about our religion that you cannot answer, that person is almost certainly Satan. In fact, the more reasonable the person is, the more eager to engage you in open-minded and congenial discussion, the more sure you can be that you're talking to Satan in disguise! Turn away! Do not listen! It's a trap!</blockquote>What is particularly cute about this trick is that it is a perfect "wild card," so lacking in content that any sect or creed or conspiracy can use it effectively. Communist cells can be warned that any criticism they encounter is almost sure to be the work of FBI infiltrators in disguise, and radical feminist discussion groups can squelch any unanswerable criticism by declaring it to be phallocentric propaganda being unwittingly spread by a brainwashed dupe of the evil patriarchy, and so forth. This all-purpose loyalty-enforcer is paranoia in a pill, sure to keep the critics muted if not silent. Did anyone invent this brilliant adaptation, or is it a wild meme that domesticated itself by attaching itself to whatever memes were competing for hosts in its neighborhood? Nobody knows, but now it is available for anybody to use — although, if this book has any success, its virulence should diminish as people begin to recognize it for what it is.

Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.

Religion is the opiate of the masses.

We have managed to transfer religious belief into gullibility for whatever can masquerade as science.

It’s bad business meddling with the devil; it makes you superstitious.

Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitudes.

condemning religions as a whole would be like wanting to destroy a garden because weeds have disfigured it.