求一篇关于坚持的英文演讲稿，急急急

1. 求一篇关于坚持的英文演讲稿，急急急

I will persist until I succeed.

坚持不懈。直到成功。

In the Orient young bulls are tested for the fight arena in a certain manner. Each is brought to the ring and allowed to attack a picador who pricks them with a lance. The bravery of each bull is then rated with care according to the number of times he demonstrates his willingness to charge in spite of the sting of the blade. Henceforth will I recognize that each day I am tested by life in like manner. If I persist, if I continue to try, if I continue to charge forward, I will succeed.

在古老的东方，挑选小公牛列竞技场格斗有一定的程序、它们被带进场地，向手持长矛的斗牛士攻击，裁判以它受激后再向斗牛士进攻的次数多寡来评定这只公牛的勇敢程度。从今往后。我须承认，我的生命每天都在接受类似的考验。如果我坚韧不拔，勇往直前，迎接挑战。那么我一定会成功。

I will persist until I succeed.

坚持不懈。直到成功。

I was not delivered unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course in my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. I will hear not those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious. Let them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny.

我不是为了失败才来到这个世界上的，我的血管里也没有失败的血液在流动。我不是任人鞭打的羔羊，我是猛狮，不与羊群为伍。我不想听失意者的哭泣，抱怨者的牢骚，这是羊群中的瘟疫，我不能被它传染。失败者的屠宰场不是我命运的归宿。

I will persist until I succeed.

坚持不懈，直到成功。

The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner.

生命的奖赏远在旅途终点，而非起点附近。我不知道要走多少步才能达到目标。踏上第一千步的时候，仍然可能遭到失败。但成功就藏在拐角后面，除非拐了弯，我永远不知道还有多远。

Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.

再前进一步，如果没有用，就再向前一步。事实上，每次进步一点点并不太难。

I will persist until I succeed.

坚持不懈，直到成功。

Henceforth, I will consider each day's effort as but one blow of my blade against a mighty oak. The first blow may cause not a tremor in the wood, nor the second, nor the third. Each blow, of itself, may be trifling, and seem of no consequence. Yet from childish swipes the oak will eventually tumble. So it will be with my efforts of today.

从今往后，我承认每天的奋斗就像对参天大树的一次砍击，头几刀可能了无痕迹。每一击者似微不足道，然而，累积起来，巨树终会倒下。这恰如我今天的努力。

I will be liken to the raindrop which washes away the mountain; the ant who devours a tiger; the star which brightens the earth; the slave who builds a pyramid. I will build my castle one brick at a time for I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking.

就像冲洗高山的雨滴，吞噬猛虎的蚂蚁，照亮大地的星辰，建起金字塔的奴隶，我也要一砖一瓦地建造起自己的城堡，因为我深知水滴石穿的道理，只要持之以恒，什么都可以做到。

I will persist until I succeed.

坚持不懈，直到成功。

I will never consider defeat and I will remove from my vocabulary such words and phrases as quit, cannot, unable, impossible, out of the question, improbable, failure, unworkable, hopeless, and retreat; for they are the words of fools. I will avoid despair but if this disease of the mind should infect me then I will work on in despair. I will toil and I will endure. I will ignore the obstacles at my feet and keep mine eyes on the goals above my head, for I know that where dry desert ends, green grass grows.

我绝不考虑失败，我的字典里不再有放弃，不可能、办不到、没法子、成问题、失败，行不通、没希望、退缩…这类愚蠢的字眼。我要尽量避免绝望，一旦受到它的威胁，立即想方设法向它挑战。我要辛勤耕耘，忍受苦楚。我放眼未来，勇往直前，不再理会脚下的障碍。我坚信，沙漠尽头必是绿洲。

I will persist until I succeed.

坚持不懈，直到成功。

I will remember the ancient law of averages and I will bend it to my good. I will persist with knowledge that each failure to sell will increase my chance for success at the next attempt. Each nay I hear will bring me closer to the sound of yea. Each frown I meet only prepares me for the smile to come. Each misfortune I encounter will carry in it the seed of tomorrow's good luck. I must have the night to appreciate the day. I must fail often to succeed only once.

我要牢牢记住古老的平衡法则，鼓励自己坚持下去，因为每一次的失败都会增加下一次成功的机会。这一次的拒绝就是下一次的赞同，这一次皱起的眉头就是下一次舒展的笑容。今天的不幸，往往预示着明天的好运。夜幕降临。回想一天的遭遇。我总是心存感激。我深知，只有失败多次，才能成功。

I will persist until I succeed.

坚持不懈，直到成功。

I will try, and try, and try again. Each obstacle I will consider as a mere detour to my goal and a challenge to my profession. I will persist and develop my skills as the mariner develops his, by learning to ride out the wrath of each storm.

我要尝试，尝试，再尝试。障碍是我成功路上的弯路，我迎接这项挑战。我要像水手一样，乘风破浪。

I will persist until I succeed.

坚持不懈，直到成功。

Henceforth, I will learn and apply another secret of those who excel in my work. When each day is ended, not regarding whether it has been a success or a failure, I will attempt to achieve one more sale. When my thoughts beckon my tired body homeward I will resist the temptation to depart. I will try again. I will make one more attempt to close with victory, and if that fails I will make another. Never will I allow any day to end with a failure. Thus will I plant the seed of tomorrow's success and gain an insurmountable advantage over those who cease their labor at a prescribed time. When others cease their struggle, the mine will begin, and my harvest will be full.

从今往后，我要借鉴别人成功的秘诀。过去的是非成败，我全不计较，只抱定信念，明天会更好。当我精疲力歇时，我要抵制回家的诱惑，再试一次。我一试再试。争取每一天的成功，避免以失败收场。我要为明天的成功播种，超过那些按部就班的人。在别人停滞不前时，我继续拼搏，终有一天我会丰收。“

I will persist until I succeed.

坚持不懈，直到成功。

Nor will I allow yesterday's success to lull me into today's complacency, for this is the great foundation of failure. I will forget the happenings of the day that is gone, whether they were good or bad, and greet the new sun with confidence that this will be the best day of my life.

我不因昨日的成功而满足，因为这是失败的先兆。我要忘却昨日的一切，是好是坏，都让它随风而去。我信心百倍，迎接新的太阳，相信“今天是此生最好的一天”。

So long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist. For now I know one of the greatest principles of success; if I persist long enough I will win.

只要我一息尚存，就要坚持到底，因为我已深知成功的秘诀。

I will persist. I will win.

坚持不懈，终会成功。

选自羊皮卷三 可以筛选一下

2. 求一篇关于“我的家人”的英文演讲稿。

真正的爱情并不一定是他人眼中的完美匹配 
而是相爱的人彼此心灵的相互契合 
是为了让对方生活得更好而默默奉献 
这份爱不仅温润着他们自己，也同样温润着那些世俗的心 
真正的爱情，是在能爱的时候，懂得珍惜 
真正的爱情，是在无法爱的时候，懂得放手 
因为，放手才是拥有了一切…… 
请在珍惜的时候,好好去爱 
真爱是一种从内心发出的关心和照顾，没有华丽的言语，没有哗众取宠的行动， 只有在点点滴滴一言一行中你能感受得到。 那样平实那样坚定。反之发誓、许诺说明了它的不确定，永远不要相信甜蜜的话语。用心去感受吧

3. 急求一篇关于音乐的英语演讲稿~！

参考了：）~

All over the world people listen to classical music. Classical music is difficult to describe. It means different things to different people.

Some famous classical composers were Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn and Mozart. In their music, they did not tell a story or show strong emotions. They wanted to make beautiful and interesting music with lovely sounds.

Then composers started to express ideas. They told stories about love and war. They also wrote about religion. Sometimes they composed music for holidays. Through their music composers showed strong emotions. Some of these composers were Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Wagner and Tchaikovsky.

Classical music has been popular for hundreds of years. Bach wrote about 300 years ago. Beethoven wrote about 200 years ago. And Tchaikovsky wrote over 100 years ago.

Sometimes people close their eyes while listening to classical music. It is difficult to understand sometimes. When they close their eyes they have to think about the music.

4. 求一篇关于成长的英文演讲稿越短越好

Sometimes I have thought it would be an

5. 求一篇关于“语言”的英文演讲稿

A language is a particular kind of system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation and usage of systems of symbols—each symbol referring to linguistic concepts with semantic or logical or otherwise expressive meanings.

The most obvious manifestations are spoken languages such as English or Spoken Chinese. However, there are also written languages and other systems of visual symbols such as sign languages.

Although some other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, and these are sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that linguists use to define language in the strict sense.

When discussed more technically as a general phenomenon then, "language" always implies a particular type of human thought which can be present even when communication is not the result, and this way of thinking is also sometimes treated as indistinguishable from language itself.

In Western philosophy for example, language has long been closely associated with reason, which is also a uniquely human way of using symbols. In Ancient Greek philosophical terminology, the same word, logos, was used as a term for both language or speech and reason, and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the English word "speech" so that it similarly could refer to reason, as discussed below.
[edit] Properties of language
A set of commonly accepted signs (indices, icons or symbols) is only one feature of language; all languages must define (1) the structural relationships between these signs in a system of grammar, (2) the context wherein the signs are used (pragmatics) and (3) dependent on their context the content specificity, i.e. its meaning (semantics). Rules of grammar are one of the characteristics sometimes said to distinguish language from other forms of communication. They allow a finite set of signs to be manipulated to create a potentially infinite number of grammatical utterances. However, this definition is self-circular. The structural relationships make sense only within language; the structure of language exists only in language. It is impossible to have a logically correct definition of a noun or verb. And logic itself concerns itself with propositions which are closely linked with content specificity i.e. semantics.

Another property of language is that its symbols are arbitrary[1]. Any concept or grammatical rule can be mapped onto a symbol. In other words, most languages make use of sound, but the combinations of sounds used do not have any necessary and inherent meaning – they are merely an agreed-upon convention to represent a certain thing by users of that language. For instance, the sound combination nada carries the meaning of "nothing" in the Spanish language and also the meaning "thread" in the Hindi language. There is nothing about the word nada itself that forces Hindi speakers to convey the idea of "thread", or the idea of "nothing" for Spanish speakers. Other sets of sounds (for example, the English words nothing and thread) could equally be used to represent the same concepts, but all Spanish and Hindi speakers have acquired or learned to correlate their own meanings for this particular sound pattern. Indeed, for speakers of Slovene and other South Slavic languages, the sound combination carries the meaning of "hope", while in Indonesian, it means "tone".

This arbitrariness even applies to words with an onomatopoetic dimension (i.e. words that to some extent simulate the sound of the token referred to). For example, several animal names (e.g. cuckoo, whip-poor-will, katydid) are derived from sounds the respective animal makes, but these forms did not have to be chosen for these meanings. Non-onomatopoetic words can stand just as easily for the same meaning. For instance, the katydid is called a "bush cricket" in British English, a term that bears no relation to the sound the animal makes. In time, onomatopoetic words can also change in form, losing their mimetic status. Onomatopoetic words may have an inherent relation to their referent, but this meaning is not inherent, thus they do not violate arbitrariness.

[edit] Origin of language
 
Ancient Tamil inscription at the Brihadeeswara Temple in ThanjavurMain article: Origin of language
Even before the theory of evolution made discussion of more animal-like human ancestors commonplace, philosophical and scientific speculation casting doubt on the use of early language has been frequent throughout history. In modern Western philosophy, speculation by authors such as Thomas Hobbes and later Jean-Jacques Rousseau led to the Académie française declaring the subject off-limits.[citation needed]

The origin of language is of great interest to philosophers because language is such an essential characteristic of human life. In classical Greek philosophy such inquiry was approached by considering the nature of things, in this case human nature. Aristotle, for example, treated humans as creatures with reason and language by their intrinsic nature, related to their natural propensities to be "political," and dwell in city-state communities (Greek: poleis)[2].

Hobbes, followed by John Locke and others, claimed that language is an extension of the "speech" which humans have within themselves, which in a sense takes the classical view that reason is one of the most primary characteristics of human nature. Others have argued the opposite - that reason developed out of the need for more complex communication. Rousseau, despite writing[3] before the publication of Darwin's theory of evolution, claimed that there had once been humans who had no language or reason and who developed language first—rather than reason—the development of which he explicitly described as a mixed blessing, with many negative characteristics.

Since the arrival of Darwin, the subject has been approached more often by scientists than philosophers. For example, neurologist Terrence Deacon in his Symbolic Species has argued that reason and language "coevolved." Merlin Donald sees language as a later development building upon what he refers to as mimetic culture,[4] emphasizing that this coevolution depended upon the interactions of many individuals. He writes that:

A shared communicative culture, with sharing of mental representations to some degree, must have come first, before language, creating a social environment in which language would have been useful and adaptive.[5]

The specific causes of the natural selection that led to language are however still the subject of much speculation, but a common theme which goes right back to Aristotle is that many theories propose that the gains to be had from language and/or reason were probably mainly in the area of increasingly sophisticated social structures.

In more recent times, a theory of mirror neurons has emerged in relation to language. Ramachandran [6] has gone so far as to claim that "mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology: they will provide a unifying framework and help explain a host of mental abilities that have hitherto remained mysterious and inaccessible to experiments". Mirror neurons are located in the human inferior frontal cortex and superior parietal lobe, and are unique in that they fire when completing an action and also when witnessing an actor performing the same action. Various studies have proposed a theory of mirror neurons related to language development [7][8][9].

[edit] Language May Have Evolved from Visual-Spatial Working Memory During the Evolution of Stone Tool Technology
Vandervert (2009a, 2009b; Vandervert, Schimpf & Liu, 2007) proposed a neuro-cognitive explanation of the evolutionary relationship between reason and language. According to this view, a new class of mental capacities evolved within human working memory which was selected in a step-by-step collaboration with evolving cognitive functions of the cerebellum. This new class of mental capacities evolved from visual-spatial working memory, which we share with animals, and came to constitute the articulatory speech loop of working memory (see working memory). Noting that the human cerebellum has experienced a fourfold increase in size in the last million years, Vandervert believes the main drivers of the evolutionary selection toward uniquely human mental and communicative capacities (of which language is only a portion) were the requirements of coordinated working memory-cerebellar control during 100’s of thousands of years of stone tool technology evolution. That is, over millennia the making of stone tools required progressively more complex blending between structured, planned intentions of the central executive of working memory and refined, repetitive composite series of perceptual/motor control by the cerebellum (see Hautzel, Mottaghy, Specht, Muller & Krause, 2009 for central executive functions of the cerebellum). The cerebellum constantly refined the processes of working memory on the one hand, and the repetitive execution of complex knapping (stone sculpting) movements on the other; thus this process formed a positive feedback loop between the two.

6. 求一篇英语演讲稿，关于产品介绍的

自己写嘛！或者在其他产品介绍书上借鉴一下嘛！

7. 求一篇关于water英文演讲稿

Cherish the water 

My dear Teachers，fellow students and friends： Good afternoon．
As we all know, the earth is a planet almost covered by water，and it is water made every thing on the earth lively．Water is also one of the important part of our environment．Though，is there really so much water for us to clean，to produce many things，to play with? how much water are there on the earth then?
Most of the water is in the oceans or locked away as ice．The largest volumes of fresh water are stored underground as groundwater，imagine there is only one barrel of water in the world，then there is only a spoon of it on the land，and the water we can use is only a drop of it．Now I have to remind all of you here that the single drop of water is never as Clean as before，it has been polluted severely by our human beings．
There is a very beautiful river in Paris．It is the Seine，it runs across the City，people drink coffee, chat on the bank in the day，at night，they enjoy the beautiful scenery in the boat，songs from the river fly into the Sky made the river more attractive, the Seine is a famous symbol of France；on the west coast of pacific ocean there lies the modern City Shanghai，another river which used to be a very important transportation route runs through the center of the city，people respected and regard it as"mother"．It is the"suzhou river，but l believe that few of you would sit beside it，people will be scattered by the terrible smell of water when walk by．I have to say it is extremely dirty! And we all know that a lot of beautiful rivers in the world also are Sharing the same fate with suzhou river． Who is the devil? I can't help asking．
Many human activities and their by-products have the potential to pollute water. Please have a look along the banks of the river, large and small industrial enterprises discharge dirty
water, tons of garbage were thrown into the river, the water contained so much that it can't clean itself. Compared with the dramatic development in many sides of Shanghai, the suzhou river has become a black point of the appearance of city.
Fortunately, the government has control the situation now, we are happy to see some parts of the river has become clean again, and we even can find fish sometime.
The unique earth is the only planet full of lives, the water is just like the blood in the active body, protecting water is saving ourselves. Not to waste a single drop of water, otherwise, the only drop of water we could keep in the future would be our tear!
My dear friends, mankind still faces a great difficulty in solving the problems of the environment and development, and there is a grand task to perform and along way to go. The middle school students in China will always cooperate with the young people of the world to protect the environment.
The future is ours to build!

Thanks for listening.
Fudan Middle School Shanghai

8. 求一篇关于信仰的英文演讲稿 大概3分钟左右的

A religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth.[1] Religion is commonly identified by the practitioner's prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, among other things, and is often interwoven with society and politics. It may focus on specific supernatural, metaphysical, and moral claims about reality (the cosmos and human nature) which may yield a set of religious laws, ethics, and a particular lifestyle. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.

The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction. "Religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system,"[2] but it is more socially defined than personal convictions, and it entails specific behaviors, respectively.
In the frame of western religious thought,[3] religions present a common quality, the "hallmark of patriarchal religious thought": the division of the world in two comprehensive domains, one sacred, the other profane.[4] According to the futurist Raymond Kurzweil, "The primary role of traditional religion is deathist rationalization—that is, rationalizing the tragedy of death as a good thing."[5] Religion is often described as a communal system for the coherence of belief focusing on a system of thought, unseen being, person, or object, that is considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine, or of the highest truth. Moral codes, practices, values, institutions, tradition, rituals, and scriptures are often traditionally associated with the core belief, and these may have some overlap with concepts in secular philosophy. Religion is also often described as a "way of life" or a life stance 
Religion and the body politic
A good understanding of the meaning of Christianity before the word "religion" came into common usage can be found in St. Augustine's writing. For Augustine, Christianity was a disciplina, a "rule" just like that of the Roman Empire. Christianity was therefore a power structure opposing and superseding human institutions, a literal Kingdom of Heaven. Rather than calling one to self-discipline through symbols, it was itself the discipline taught by one's family, school, church, and city authorities.[11] However at this point the root of the English word "religion", the Latin religio, was in use only to mean "reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things, piety" (which Cicero further derived to mean "diligence"[12]); in other words, there was no sense of a "system" nor even of the Christian power structure but only of spirituality.[13] Max Müller characterized many other cultures around the world, including Egypt, Persia, and India, as having a similar power structure at this point in history. What we would call religion today, they would only call "law".[14]

As Christianity became commonplace, the charismatic authority identified by Augustine, a quality we might today call "religiousness", had a commanding influence at the local level. This system persisted in the Byzantine Empire following the East-West Schism, while Western Europe regulated unpredictable expressions of charisma through the Roman Catholic Church. However, as the Church lost its dominance during the Protestant Reformation and Christianity became closely tied to political structures, religion was recast as the basis of national sovereignty, and religious identity gradually became a less universal sense of spirituality and more divisive, locally defined, and tied to nationality.[15] It was at this point that "religion" was dissociated with universal beliefs and moved closer to dogma in both meaning and practice. However there was not yet the idea of dogma as personal choice, only of established churches.

Religious freedom
In the Age of Enlightenment, the idea of Christianity as the purest expression of spirituality was supplanted by the concept of "religion" as a worldwide practice.[16] This caused such ideas as religious freedom, a reexamination of classical philosophy as an alternative to Christian thought, and more radically Deism among intellectuals such as Voltaire. Much like Christianity, the idea of "religious freedom" was exported around the world as a civilizing technique, even to regions like India that had never treated spirituality as a matter of political identity.[17] In Japan, where Buddhism was still seen as a philosophy of natural law,[18] the concept of "religion" and "religious freedom" as separate from other power structures was unnecessary until Christian missionaries demanded free access to conversion, and when Japanese Christians refused to engage in patriotic events.[19]

With the Enlightenment religion lost its attachment to nationality, but rather than being a universal social attitude, it was now a personal feeling, or emotion.[20] Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl, commonly translated as "a feeling of absolute dependence".[21] His contemporary Hegel disagreed thoroughly, defining religion as "the Divine Spirit becoming conscious of Himself through the finite spirit."[22] William James is an especially notable 19th century subscriber to the theory of religion as feeling.

 
Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are one, a painting in the litang style portraying three men laughing by a river stream, 12th century, Song DynastyModern currents in religion
Religious studies
With the recognition of religion as a category separate from culture and society came the rise of religious studies. Clifford Geertz's definition of religion as a "cultural system" was dominant for most of the 20th century and continues to be widely accepted today.

Sociologists and anthropologists tend to see religion as an abstract set of ideas, values, or experiences developed as part of a cultural matrix. For example, in Lindbeck's Nature of Doctrine, religion does not refer to belief in "God" or a transcendent Absolute. Instead, Lindbeck defines religion as, "a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought… it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments.”[23] According to this definition, religion refers to one's primary worldview and how this dictates one's thoughts and actions. Thus religion is considered by some sources to extend to causes, principles, or activities believed in with zeal or conscientious devotion concerning points or matters of ethics or conscience, and not necessarily including belief in the supernatural.[24]

Although evolutionists had previously sought to understand and explain religion in terms of a cultural attribute which might conceivably confer biological advantages to its adherents, Richard Dawkins called for a re-analysis of religion in terms of the evolution of self-replicating ideas apart from any resulting biological advantages they might bestow. He argued that the role of key replicator in cultural evolution belongs not to genes, but to memes replicating thought from person to person by means of imitation. These replicators respond to selective pressures that may or may not affect biological reproduction or survival.[25] Susan Blackmore regards religions as particularly tenacious memes.[26] Chris Hedges, however, regards meme theory as a misleading imposition of genetics onto psychology.

Interfaith cooperation
Because religion continues to be recognized in Western thought as a universal impulse, many religious practitioners have aimed to band together in interfaith dialogue and cooperation. The first major dialogue was the Parliament of the World's Religions at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which remains notable even today both in affirming "universal values" and recognition of the diversity of practices among different cultures. The 20th century has been especially fruitful in use of interfaith dialogue as a means of solving ethnic, political, or even religious conflict, with Christian-Jewish reconciliation representing a complete reverse in the attitudes of many Christian communities towards Jews.

Secularism and criticism of religion
Main articles: Criticism of religion, Antireligion, Secularism, Agnosticism, and Atheism
As religion became a more personal matter, discussions of society found a new focus on political and scientific meaning, and religious attitudes were increasingly seen as irrelevant for the needs of the European world. On the political side, Ludwig Feuerbach recast Christian beliefs in light of humanism, paving the way for Karl Marx's famous characterization of religion as "the opiate of the masses". Meanwhile, in the scientific community, T.H. Huxley in 1869 coined the term "agnostic," a term subsequently adopted by such figures as Robert Ingersoll. Later, Bertrand Russell told the world Why I Am Not a Christian.

Atheists have developed a critique of religious systems as well as personal faith. Modern-day critics focus on religion's lack of utility in human society, faulting religion as being irrational.[27] Some assert that dogmatic religions are in effect morally deficient, elevating to moral status ancient, arbitrary, and ill-informed rules—taboos on eating pork, for example, as well as dress codes and sexual practices[28]—possibly designed for reasons of hygiene or even mere politics in a bygone era.

In North America and Western Europe the social fallout of the 9/11 attacks contributed in part to the appearance of numerous pro-secularist books, such as The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, The End of Faith by Sam Harris, and God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. This criticism is largely, but not entirely, focused on the monotheistic Abrahamic traditions.

Religious belief
 
Central Asian (Tocharian) and East-Asian Buddhist monks, Bezeklik, Eastern Tarim Basin, 9th-10th centuryMain article: Religious belief
Religious belief usually relates to the existence, nature and worship of a deity or deities and divine involvement in the universe and human life. Alternately, it may also relate to values and practices transmitted by a spiritual leader. Unlike other belief systems, which may be passed on orally, religious belief tends to be codified in literate societies (religion in non-literate societies is still largely passed on orally[29]). In some religions, like the Abrahamic religions, it is held that most of the core beliefs have been divinely revealed.

Religious belief can also involve causes, principles or activities believed in with zeal or conscientious devotion concerning points or matters of ethics or conscience, not necessarily limited to organized religions