A.C. Bouquet:
religion means a fixed relationship between the human
self and some non-human entity, the Sacred,
Supernatural, the Self Existent, the
Absolute or simply God.
Karl Marx:
Religion is: "the sob of the oppressed creature, the
heart of the heartless world, the spirit of conditions
utterly unspiritual. It is the opium of the poor."
Engels:
Religion is nothing but the fantastic reflection in
men's minds of those external forces which control
their early life.
Lenin:
religion taught those who toiled in poverty all their
lives to be resigned and patient in this world and
consoled them with the hope of reward in heaven,
because it was an opiate of the people, a sort of
spiritual vodka, meant to make them the slaves of
capitalism.
Jonathan Swift:
We have just enough religion to make us hate but not
enough to make us love one another.
Webster's new Universal Dictionary:
religion is " the recognition on the part of man, of a
controlling supernatural power entitled to obedience,
reverence and worship. The feeling or the spiritual
atitude of those recognising such a controlling
power."
Oxford Dictionary:
religion is a "system of faith and worship; human
recognition of supernatural controlling power and
specially of a personal god entitled to obedience,
effect of such on conduct etc".
Is Buddhism a philosophy? See next issue to know more.
extracted from "Aspects of Early Buddhist Sociological
Thought" by Venerable Pategama Gnanarama Ph.D.