Religious Toleration Quotes

“The black, the white, the brown, the red, the yellow, the hetero, the homo, the trans, the poor, the rich, the literate, the illiterate, the weak, the strong – all are my sisters and brothers. My life is their life. And till the last breath in my body, I shall be serving you all with all the power in my veins. And beyond death, my ideas shall be serving you for eternity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, I Am The Thread: My Mission

“Terrorism has nothing to do with religion, Islam or otherwise. Terrorism is born of fundamentalism not of religion.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Acceptance does not mean accepting those who disregard humans on the basis of race, religion and sexual orientation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Civilized or Phobic: A Treatise on Homosexuality

“A religious individual may most gloriously carry out his or her own rituals, as a part of his or her cultural identity, but the moment, that person starts to build a wall of separation between the self and the rest of humanity, coaxed by the textual commands of a scripture, the healthy religiousness turns into dangerous fundamentalism, which is a threat to both the self and the society.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“The point is, being a Christian does not mean hating or belittling the non-Christians. Being a Muslim does not mean hating or belittling the non-Muslims. Being an Atheist does not mean hating or belittling the religious people. In a civilized society, diversity in religious orientation should be the reason for celebration, not the cause for hatred and differentiation.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Accepting evil is worse than committing evil.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Civilized or Phobic: A Treatise on Homosexuality

“Accepting evil is worse than committing evil. You must – I repeat – you must, as a human being, stand up on the side of humanism, against barbarian inhumanism, for it is your action, that shall determine whether your children shall live in a world of peace and harmony or a world of chaos and discriminations.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Civilized or Phobic: A Treatise on Homosexuality

“I work to make human beings out of human bodies. I work to make conscience out of mindlessness. I work to make Gods out of obedient worshippers.”
― Abhijit Naskar, I Am The Thread: My Mission

“You must remember, the so-called Jihadis who are in reality, mentally unstable individuals run by Quranic fundamentalists, do not represent the whole Muslim population of the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Terrorism is born of fundamentalism not of religion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Illusion of Religion: A Treatise on Religious Fundamentalism

“Scriptures are meant to serve humanity, not humanity to serve scriptures.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance

“O my brave Almighty Human, with the ever-effulgent flow of courage, conscience and compassion, turn yourself into a vivacious humanizer, and start walking with bold footsteps while eliminating racism, terminating misogyny, destroying homophobia and all other primitiveness that have turned humanity into the most inhuman species on earth.”
― Abhijit Naskar, I Am The Thread: My Mission

“Hurt no one's belief as long as they are not practicing and preaching hate.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Earthquakin' Egalitarian: I Die Everyday So Your Children Can Live

“Any religion that does not evolve with time, either gets destroyed or destroys the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“To the representatives of theoretical Islam, i.e. Islamic fundamentalists, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Buddhists and all other humans who are not Muslims, are not just object of extreme detestation, they are, at the worst, lesser humans of false religions. This is not religion my friend. This is primitiveness at its worst.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance

“Any individual whose conscience is pure and clear, who can think for himself or herself, is a musalman or muslim, regardless of socio-religious background. Likewise, any human being who loves the neighbor as much as his or her own family is a Christian.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance

“When a person irrationally and quite pathologically sticks to the creeds of his scriptures too much, it can turn even a great human being into the worst version of himself.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance

“Killing a bunch of Jihadis may be morally justified, to save humanity from their wrath, but it won't terminate Jihad for long. Jihad or Holy war would keep festering one way or another, until religious fundamentalism is eradicated from the human society. Until the whole humanity learns to scrutinize its most revered scriptures with the sharp tool of reasoning, Jihad will keep on striking over the world. If one does not have the basic conscientious capacity to refute the primitive textual verses of the scriptures that demand one to kill or torture another being for holding a different belief system than one's own, then that entity is no being of the civilized human society, it is merely a pest from the stone-age. No Quran, no Bible, no Gita, no Cow, is greater than the human self. There shall be hope for harmony and peace in the world, only when fundamentalism is destroyed forever. Harmony is not a luxury, it is an existential necessity of the species. And to achieve it, if a hundred Bibles have to be sacrificed, then be it. But for no Bible, Quran or Gita, can harmony be compromised.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Harmony is not a luxury, it is an existential necessity of the species. And to achieve it, if a hundred Bibles have to be sacrificed, then be it. But for no Bible, Quran or Gita, can harmony be compromised.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“I am the thread of unification that goes through humans of all religions, cultures and ideologies while reinforcing their innate sense of one humanity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, I Am The Thread: My Mission

“Give me your soul and I will give you a unified humanity replete with courage, conscience and compassion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, I Am The Thread: My Mission

“It's about religious acceptance, it's no longer about religious tolerance.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Toleration was a matter of the previous centuries – through this idea of toleration, thinking humans took the early steps towards a society free from religious sectarianism. The parliament of religions was and still remains a glorious emblem of this endeavor of religious toleration. However, time has changed and so has its needs. The need of this century is acceptance.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“The greatest threat to the world is not any specific faith, for faith is nature's anti-dote to misery. The greatest threat to the world is intolerance, regardless of its religious, non-religious, political or intellectual background.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkanjali: The Sufi Sermon

“Sonnet of A Religious Person

I spent years as a Christian,
I didn't find God.
I spent years as a Muslim,
I didn't find God.
I spent years as Hindu and Sikh,
Still there was no inkling.
I spent years as Buddhist and Atheist,
Still I understood nothing.
I did it all, prayers, rituals, meditation,
None of it brought me serenity.
For serenity has been all along,
At the feet of the ailing humanity.
I shelved all scriptures and stood as human.
Kindness alone is the sign of a religious person.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Earthquakin' Egalitarian: I Die Everyday So Your Children Can Live

“Forgive Us Jesus (The Sonnet)

Forgive us Jesus, my friend,
We couldn't walk in your footsteps.
You asked us to love our neighbor,
Yet we found it impossible to be hateless.
You didn't hate those who hated you,
You loved them despite being mocked.
Yet we can't even talk without judging today,
We can't accept any difference in thought.
Forgetting all comfort and luxury,
You gave your life trying to erase bigotry.
Yet we made you fodder for our own prejudice,
And turned the crucifix into a badge of cruelty.
We used you my friend to deepen our division.
We prefer mindless worship over hearty compassion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Şehit Sevda Society: Even in Death I Shall Live

“Expansion is religion, narrowness is blasphemy. Reason is religion, prejudice is blasphemy. Curiosity is religion, belief without question is blasphemy.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Ingan Impossible: Handbook of Hatebusting

“If the bible comes and peddles phobia,
I'll burn such bible to ashes.
If the koran comes and peddles violence,
I'll tear up such koran to pieces.

If the vedas come and peddle superstition,
I'll crush such filth to pulp with my foot.
If the constitution comes and peddles war,
As concerned parent I'll grab their makers,
And spank out all their dormant good.

Even if some two-bit God comes,
And peddles division,
I'll divide him so many times,
Even to his apostles,
He'll bear no recognition.

And a little word of advise to those,
Priming their guns, swords and tridents.
When a volcano erupts,
Insects are supposed to run,
Not hide behind bows, arrows and bibles.

Brain is mightier than bullets,
Heart is mightier than the homunculus.
When a 3 pound brain falls on bigoted bugs,
There is no running, only burning to cinders.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım

“Discipline of the Sikh,
Enthusiasm of the Christian,
Brotherhood of the Muslim,
Nonviolence of the Jain,
Senility of the Buddhist,
Groundedness of the Hindu,
Rationality of the Atheist,
Resilience of the Jew -

Take the good from everyone,
Mind expands through assimilation.
Past errors mustn't continue as tradition,
Oneness is divinity, division is damnation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Mary Stuart and Elizabeth both aimed at toleration in an intolerant age, in the same ways that Catherine de’ Medici, the mother-in-law of one and the almost mother-in-law of another English queen, labored her whole life to heal the rift between Catholic and Protestant in France. All three of these queens worked as diligently and as astutely as they might to restrain the fratricidal wars of Christian against Christian. What they had to hold up against that violent seismic shift in human sensibility was the orderly traditions of monarchy. If they did not ultimately succeed, they slowed and tempered the disorder and violence.”
― Maureen Quilligan, When Women Ruled the World: Making the Renaissance in Europe