Quotes about Violence

I believe the gun has no power at all.

The natives used to tie their enemies to the tree. The ants would eat them alive.

Righteous indignation is the alibi of mobs and murderers.

as the king rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, and his bowels discharged. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. (That's in the Bible. Word for word.)

What you find in the Bible are stories accurately reflecting the dominant consciousness of the day, and yet right in among and sometimes even within those very same violent stories, you find radically new ideas about freedom, equality, justice, compassion, and love. New ideas sit side by side with old ideas. Vicious violence is right there next to new understandings of peace and justice. (Kind of like now.)

One of the only violent images Jesus ever uses is when he speaks about those who cause children to stumble. With a shockingly hyperbolic flourish, he declares that the only fitting punishment is to tie a giant stone around their neck and throw them into the sea (Matt. 18). Death by drowning—Jesus's idea of punishment for those who lead children astray. A haunting warning if there ever was one about the spongelike nature of a child's psyche.

what is God? "He's truth; He's meaning. He's my purpose and yours. With terrorists wiping people out, dealers hooking kids on meth and ecstasy, violence and cruelty; there's still love, comfort, joy, and hope. That's God. Without him, none of it makes sense.

That cannot be a true religion which needs carnal weapons to uphold it.

In every religion, there are those who would drape themselves in the mantle of belief and faith only to distort it's most sacred teachings - preaching intolerance and resorting to violence.

That religion and that nation will be blotted out of the face of the earth which pins its faith on injustice, untruth or violence.

Dear Religion, This week I safely dropped a man from space while you shot a child in the head for wanting to go to school. Yours, Science.

Religion stalks across the face of human history, knee-deep in the blood of innocents, clasping its red hands in hymns of praise to an approving God.