Religious Conversion Quotes

“So I close this long reflection on what I hope is a not-too-quaveringly semi-Semitic note. When I am at home, I will only enter a synagogue for the bar or bat mitzvah of a friend's child, or in order to have a debate with the faithful. (When I was to be wed, I chose a rabbi named Robert Goldburg, an Einsteinian and a Shakespearean and a Spinozist, who had married Arthur Miller to Marilyn Monroe and had a copy of Marilyn’s conversion certificate. He conducted the ceremony in Victor and Annie Navasky's front room, with David Rieff and Steve Wasserman as my best of men.) I wanted to do something to acknowledge, and to knit up, the broken continuity between me and my German-Polish forebears. When I am traveling, I will stop at the shul if it is in a country where Jews are under threat, or dying out, or were once persecuted. This has taken me down queer and sad little side streets in Morocco and Tunisia and Eritrea and India, and in Damascus and Budapest and Prague and Istanbul, more than once to temples that have recently been desecrated by the new breed of racist Islamic gangster. (I have also had quite serious discussions, with Iraqi Kurdish friends, about the possibility of Jews genuinely returning in friendship to the places in northern Iraq from which they were once expelled.) I hate the idea that the dispossession of one people should be held hostage to the victimhood of another, as it is in the Middle East and as it was in Eastern Europe. But I find myself somehow assuming that Jewishness and 'normality' are in some profound way noncompatible. The most gracious thing said to me when I discovered my family secret was by Martin, who after a long evening of ironic reflection said quite simply: 'Hitch, I find that I am a little envious of you.' I choose to think that this proved, once again, his appreciation for the nuances of risk, uncertainty, ambivalence, and ambiguity. These happen to be the very things that 'security' and 'normality,' rather like the fantasy of salvation, cannot purchase.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“To say, “I’ve been converted and that’s that,” is to say you have decided to quit growing. If life is about anything, it is about growing. The day I quit changing and learning is the day I die.”
― Steve Goodier

“Many people are born into their religion. For them it is mostly a matter of legacy and convenience. Their belief is based on faith, not just in the teachings of the religion but also in the acceptance of that religion from their family and culture. For the person who converts, it is a matter of fierce conviction and defiance. Our belief is based on a combination of faith and logic because we need a powerful reason to abandon the traditions of our families and community to embrace beliefs foreign to both. Conversion is a risky business because it can result in losing family, friends and community support.”
― Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

“Killing a belief could be worse than killing a human being. When you kill a human, you take their life, but when you take their faith, they are left without hope, without meaning.”
― Nimish Dayalu, Caveman’s Secret Sauce: Finding Answers to the World’s Oldest Questions

“Research on conversion has demonstrated that, long after such an experience, a convert tends to confuse what actually happened in light of everything that occurs in its aftermath.

That is to say, years later, the accounts people tell, to both themselves and others, have been slanted by all they have learned, thought, and experienced in the interim.”
― Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World

“Because of the open nature of polytheism, there was virtually no such thing as “conversion.”

Anyone who chose to begin worshiping a new god was welcome to do so and was not required or expected to leave behind any previous practices of worship or make an exclusive commitment to this one deity.”
― Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World

“Religious conversion evidently transforms not just the soul but also facial appearances.”
― Umberto Eco, The Prague Cemetery

“What if I’m wrong?” This is the question that runs through the mind of a skeptic. It’s important to go over the arguments and thought process time and time again, reaffirming that it’s logical, sound, evidenced, and is a proper conclusion to our observations and science. This is the seed that will eventually grow into a more proper faith.”
― April Papke, Religion for Skeptics: An Ex-Atheist's Guide to Spirituality

“There is uncertainty there. Anxiety, worries, a lack of confidence in your beliefs and views. The “leap” into a new worldview is always one that starts with rocky ground and unsteady footing. It has to, by its very nature.”
― April Papke, Religion for Skeptics: An Ex-Atheist's Guide to Spirituality

“The Vatican has been sending out missionaries across the world not to help the poor, but to convert the poor, in exchange for charity. In this respect, empirically speaking, the only religion that has been practicing the tradition of actual selfless service religiously, is Sikhism. Till this day Sikh langars or soup-kitchens across the world feed millions of people regularly, no matter their status, faith or ethnicity, without asking for anything in return. Religious charity in exchange for religious conversion is the most sacrilegious act of all. In the end, it has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with service. Either serve or don't, there is no spreading the word. Spread good acts, not good news.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Religious charity in exchange for religious conversation is the most sacrilegious act of all.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat