Recently Scott Horton of Harper’s Magazine has highlighted several quotes that touch on the religious in his “No Comment” columns, which I receive by RSS feed.  They can be found below.  I highly recommend Harper’s website, even if, or especially if, you don’t subscribe to the magazine.  There is plenty of free content to peruse, including their ever informative and entertaining index.

Dickens on Religion
Wherever religion is resorted to as a strong drink, and as an escape from the dull, monotonous round of home, those of its ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please. They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the most righteous; and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the difficulty of getting into heaven will be considered, by all true believers, certain of going there: though it would be hard to say by what process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at.
—Charles Dickens, American Notes (1842), ch. 3

Einstein on Freedom of Will
I do not believe in freedom of will. Schopenhauer’s words, “Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills,” have accompanied me throughout my life and console me in my dealings with others, even those which are truly painful to me. This recognition of the lack of freedom of will helps me avoid taking myself and my fellow men—both as actors and as individuals casting judgment—too seriously, just as it protects me from losing a sense of humor.
—Albert Einstein, “Mein Glaubensbekenntnis” (August 1932) (S.H. transl.)