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There cannot be salvation for any, except in the Church. — St. Cyprian · 256The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. — Tertullian · 197He cannot have God for his father who has not the church for his mother. — St. Cyprian · 251The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild. — G.K. Chesterton · 1908It is to believed because it is absurd. — Tertullian · 206
The pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors. — Edward Gibbon · 1788It had been boldly predicted by some of the early Christians that the conversion of the world would lead to the establishment of perpetual peace. In looking back, with our present experience, we are driven to the melancholy conclusion that, instead of diminishing the number of wars, ecclesiastical influence has actually and very seriously increased it. — William E.H. Lecky · 1869
There was really only one Christian, and he died on the cross. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1895The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience. — David Hume · 1748
Biography1 quote
Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious. — Samuel Johnson · 1763
You're born a sinner. By being born you are a sinner and you're going to hell. But you can just apologize and then you can go to heaven. No big deal. If you're a murderer—same thing, it's just apologize and go to heaven. — Sarah Silverman · 2013