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1 " Under Christianity neither morality nor religion has any point of contact with actuality. It offers purely imaginary causes (" God" " soul," " ego," " spirit," " free will" -- " unfree will" for that matter), and purely imaginary effects (" sin," " salvation," " grace," " punishment," " forgiveness of sins" ). Intercourse between imaginary beings (" God," " spirits," " souls" ); an imaginary natural science (anthropocentric; a total denial of the concept of natural causes); an imaginary psychology (misunderstandings of self, misinterpretations of agreeable or disagreeable general feelings -- for example, of the states of the nervus sympathicus with the help of the sign-language of religio-ethical balderdash -- , " repentance," " pangs of conscience," " temptation by the devil," " the presence of God" ); an imaginary teleology (the " kingdom of God," " the last judgment," " eternal life" ). -- This purely fictitious world, greatly to its disadvantage, is to be differentiated from the world of dreams; the later at least reflects reality, whereas the former falsifies it, cheapens it and denies it. Once the concept of " nature" had been opposed to the concept of " God," the word " natural" necessarily took on the meaning of " abominable" -- the whole of that fictitious world has its sources in hatred of the natural (-- the real! --), and is no more than evidence of a profound uneasiness in the presence of reality. . . . This explains everything. Who alone has any reason for lying his way out of reality? The man who suffers under it. But to suffer from reality one must be a botched reality. . . . The preponderance of pains over pleasures is the cause of this fictitious morality and religion: but such a preponderance also supplies the formula for decadence... "
2 " Take away from love the fullness of self surrender, the completeness of personal commitment, and what remains will be a total denial and negation of it. "
― Pope John Paul II , Love and Responsibility