Charles Kimball Quotations

It is easier to know the truth than to seek the truth.

Religion should be a source for reconciliation, for tolerance and for empathy.

Demanding historical (or scientific) veracity as a prerequisite for truth is another kind of tunnel vision. To do so is to mistake poetry for prose.

Anytime you have anyone who thinks he or she has God in their pocket, you have the potential for disaster, ... Throughout history, the claim that God is on your side has been used to justify any action, no matter how violent or destructive.

Blind obedience is a sure sign of trouble. The likelihood of religion becoming evil is greatly diminished when there is freedom for individual thinking and when honest inquiry is encouraged.

Whatever religious people may say about their love of God or the mandates of their religion, when their behavior toward others is violent and destructive, when it causes suffering among their neighbors, you can be sure the religion has been corrupted and reform is desperately needed.

[M]ore wars have been waged, more people killed, and more evil perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history. The sad truth continues in our present day.

I don't know that it can be comparable.

There aren't as many easy themes or uniting themes that people who come from the left side of the political and religious spectrum all agree on the way we've seen some of the issues on the religious right that have been easier to rally people around. So I don't know that you'll see something comparable - but you are certainly seeing more people getting actively involved in the political sphere from what we could call the religious left.

We need a lot by way of education because what we don't know and understand creates fear.

When anybody believes that he or she somehow knows the mind of God and knows what God wants for them and for everybody else, then you have the potential for catastrophe because ... they can justify anything. It's not what I'm doing; it's what God wants me to do.

There are many parallels. In the United States, we recently had two different Supreme Court rulings concerning the posting of the Ten Commandments, ... The connections may not be as obvious as religious dimensions playing out in the drafting of the constitution in Iraq, but we can see many examples of difficulties in trying to draw the lines that separate religion and politics.

I believe religion is an extraordinarily powerful force that has inspired the noblest best and the worst. But now we're in a world where we have many different ways that a small number of people can wreak havoc. The danger has escalated to a totally different level.