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76476ef "When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, There's just something about you that pisses me off." religion humor Stephen King
b680672 The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.. religion inspirational John Milton
6236c7d Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. prayer humanity religion god heart inspirational souls weakness Mahatma Gandhi
62897a8 A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. religion C.S. Lewis
efd8260 Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand. religion science dan-brown Dan Brown
84301c0 A truth that's told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can invent. religion philosophy truth logic William Blake
68bb9b2 Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? religion skeptic Douglas Adams
9df0084 Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that are gods. dogs religion god shelter atheism cats water food pets Christopher Hitchens
e8c54eb My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right. philosophical politics religion religious inspirational Abraham Lincoln
a864e6f "No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?" "They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer. "And what is hell? Can you tell me that?" "A pit full of fire." "And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?" "No, sir." "What must you do to avoid it?" I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die." religion humor hell Charlotte Brontë
63d5ea7 Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results. hatred religion god judgement Harper Lee
00a96ea Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. injustice religion atrocities barbarity skepticism atheism Voltaire
4e98adf Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee. christianity jesus religion god heart rest restlessness peace desire longing Augustine of Hippo
7a9fa2f The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. christianity religion god yahweh organized-religion Richard Dawkins
46a1c29 God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way. religion inspirational C.S. Lewis
c8d3bf4 I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. religion god purple alice walker
27c9f5d Above all else, guard your heart for it affects everything else you do. religion bible god inspirational Anonymous
9b51b25 For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. understanding religion science truth delusion knowledge Carl Sagan
b6ea1e5 I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it. social-justice religion humor prayers ridicule satire social-life Voltaire
663920a I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist. religion god Albert Camus
b16d303 If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards! humour stupidity religion Terry Pratchett
52dd236 I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing. compassion religion life Albert Camus
8c5a7ec Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it. humanism religion decency Christopher Hitchens
d4b70df The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's. dogs man heaven religion inspirational animals Mark Twain
96c8332 When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion. religion god Robert M. Pirsig
f96b111 I don't deserve a soul, yet I still have one. I know because it hurts. religion philosophy soul Douglas Coupland
cadc701 Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this: when we as a species abandon our trust in a power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faiths... all faiths... are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable. With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. The church consists of a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control. religion science god Dan Brown
9ba2b36 Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both. spirituality religion science science-vs-religion Carl Sagan
e73378a He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife. religion paradox Douglas Adams
2531315 It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished. lovers marriage relationships christianity spirituality religion god happiness philosophy relationship-with-god unhappy-marriage church expectations Fulton J. Sheen
0837276 Do you think it's possible for an entire nation to be insane? war religion insanity Terry Pratchett
64588ca Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? temptation morality religion steadfastness doctrine law ethics principles soul Charlotte Brontë
eb4a9f5 We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone. christianity faith religion inspirational Martin Luther
f827da4 You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too. religion love James Joyce
f6971cf I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line. thoughts romance identity religion life lesbian Jeanette Winterson
811f6fb "CALVIN: This whole Santa Claus thing just doesn't make sense. Why all the secrecy? Why all the mystery? If the guy exists why doesn't he ever show himself and prove it? And if he doesn't exist what's the meaning of all this? HOBBES: I dunno. Isn't this a religious holiday? religion life Bill Watterson
4438cc1 Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. living religion life James Baldwin
e2df397 Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately. Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court. dogs man religion doves squirrels geese foxes reasoning cats monkeys Mark Twain
dbfb9f8 Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition. racism stupidity religion dislikes scepticism superstition Christopher Hitchens
a03943e There is no God and we are his prophets. religion paraphrased Cormac McCarthy
9361756 The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive. religion god Sam Harris
eb31e28 Well, while you were in the bathroom, I sat down at this picnic table here in Bumblefug, Kentucky, and noticed that someone had carved that GOD HATES FAG, which, aside from being a grammatical nightmare, is absolutely ridiculous. So I'm changing it to 'God Hates Baguettes.' It's tough to disagree with that. Everybody hates baguettes. religion humor homophobia picnic-tables homosexuality John Green
923154d A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents. This latter nomenclature, by the way, would be an excellent piece of consciousness-raising for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose -or reject- when she becomes old enough to do so. religion indoctrination Richard Dawkins
541101c "How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?" Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths." religion science god cosmology epistemology organized-religion Carl Sagan
d6f62b6 From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable. religion god inhumanity extremism justification fanaticism zealotry Salman Rushdie
5b8de9b To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him gratitude faith religion inspirational Thomas Merton
bc610ff What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right. morality honesty religion decency Terry Pratchett
e2cada5 Sometimes you can see things happen right in front of your eyes and still jump to the wrong conclusions. religion god inspirational Jodi Picoult
52ea533 It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free. religion truth inspirational Jiddu Krishnamurti
e3851cb If you think God's there, He is. If you don't, He isn't. And if that's what God's like, I wouldn't worry about it. religion god Haruki Murakami
1fc72dd There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. religion ordinary-people neighbor C.S. Lewis
0ab6b31 About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough--and even miraculous enough if you insist--I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about? Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others--while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity--so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities... but there, there. Enough. existence morality faith religion god life secular-ethics supernaturalism meaning-of-life debate existentialism ethics materialism naturalism atheism respect self-respect Christopher Hitchens
e156765 Perhaps not one religion contains all of the truth of the world. Perhaps every religion contains fragments of the truth, and it is our responsibility to identify those fragments and piece them together. religion Christopher Paolini
d1d1a3d Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. morality religion life Charlotte Brontë
fc91e3b Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse. religion fundamentalism Christopher Hitchens
9a73e16 Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way. religion Terry Pratchett
2bd4107 I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me. religion solipsism arrogance atheism modesty Christopher Hitchens
398e781 If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it? humanity inspiration religion Yann Martel
d51b882 ...legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' . Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. religion separation-of-church-and-state organized-religion government Thomas Jefferson
59f8d31 When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late. religion science-fiction Frank Herbert
0877bc2 A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. reading religion C.S. Lewis
2df5933 I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different religion and he want to make argument about God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man say about God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, 'I agree with you.' Then you go home, pray what you want. This is my idea for people to have peace about religion. religion tolerance Elizabeth Gilbert
bff98bb Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs. religion Terry Pratchett
dfde52f Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither. christianity religion C.S. Lewis
d46a1f0 To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries religion organized-religion Richard Dawkins
3fbd3cc Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies. metaphor myth religion believers theists organized-religion Joseph Campbell
9ee75db Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns. These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is - I repeat it - a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them. criticism religion truth Charlotte Brontë
ccf30d6 I came to the conclusion long ago that all religions were true and that also that all had some error in them, and while I hold by my own religion, I should hold other religions as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we were Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu; but our innermost prayer should be that a Hindu should become a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, and a Christian a better Christian. religion inspirational christian-behavior organized-religion Mahatma Gandhi
8ab299b Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. politics religion tradition G.K. Chesterton
ec69311 When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. politics religion inspirational critical-thinking dogma freedom-of-thought independent-thought Anaïs Nin
04b41fa I have found God, but he is insufficient. religion Henry Miller
52de61c I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him. prayer religion god inspirational Ravi Zacharias
c333f01 People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction. religion fundamentalism fanaticism evil Umberto Eco
b6459b3 [Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company. religion saints devils Elizabeth Gilbert
d956906 "Your way of life is sinful and wrong," he said fiercely. Thus says a man who admits to worshipping a God who vilifies pleasure, relegates women to roles that are little more than servants and broodmares, though they are the backbone of your church, and seeks to control his worshippers through guilt and fear." -- religion P.C. Cast
2b81ce9 A preoccupation with the next world clearly shows an inability to cope credibly with this one. religion philosophy Richard K. Morgan
cbc3140 Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither. religion love whiskey nowhere W. Somerset Maugham
1f1d9b7 People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil... Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult. good religion god devil Anne Rice
608cee6 To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away. fathers mortality death religion god daughters yeats fatherhood Christopher Hitchens
a7c7ff4 To see and feel one's beloved naked for the first time is one of life's pure, irreducible epiphanies. If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include that truth of contact or be forever hollow. To make love to the one true person who deserves that love is one of the few absolute rewards of being a human being, balancing all of the pain, loss, awkwardness, loneliness, idiocy, compromise, and clumsiness that go with the human condition. To make love to the right person makes up for a lot of mistakes. sex inspiration religion happiness love connection Dan Simmons
750c12e Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. virtue religion god happiness inspirational mormonism Joseph Smith
cac80a0 Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat. human religion life human-condition existentialism José Saramago
724bbb8 "I was giving up. I would have given up - if a voice hadn't made itself heard in my heart. The voice said "I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen everyday. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen." religion spiritual life inspirational Yann Martel
266d03b There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. religion god inhumanity extremism justification fanaticism Margaret Atwood
63b5cc4 Regardless of what I think about Islam or Wicca or any other religion, the fact is that it's a group of people. Every faith has its ceremonies. And since it's made up of people, every faith also has its assholes. religion humor harry-dresden Jim Butcher
3005700 Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action. prayer religion god inspirational Mahatma Gandhi
8dc637e Faith is not Desire. Faith is Will. Desires are things that need to be satisfied, whereas Will is a force. Will changes the space around us,... faith religion will Paulo Coelho
d8835a2 Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. grief religion god C.S. Lewis
bd74fed We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love. religion love David Mitchell
5886f06 Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think. religion Terry Pratchett
42de27f But fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep yourself to death. religion life weep Bernard Cornwell
3a3e1e0 The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal. meaning religion god truth purpose knowledge Carl Sagan
b02dcb9 "What a lovely thing a rose is!" He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects. "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers." nature goodness reason religion hope roses providence flowers Arthur Conan Doyle
df14379 To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid. doubt faith religion scepticism dogma experience kool-aid Christopher Hitchens
fcd72bf I write nothing for publication, and last of all things should it be on the subject of religion. , for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Were I to enter on that arena, I should only add an unit to the number of Bedlamites. [ ] religion religious-violence Thomas Jefferson
b945389 Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there. religion inspirational inner-peace Meister Eckhart
671f660 Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called , or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testament--the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana--is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It's not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human. reading writing christianity inspiration religion ancient-greeks cana entheos judaea marriage-at-cana mullahs omar-khayyam symposia iran hellenism passover passover-seder oxford new-testament boredom brotherhood plato miracles atheism food wine Christopher Hitchens
09daced If you sit down and think about it , you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a big neon finger flashing on and off saying 'THIS IS IT!'? ... I mean, why do that if you really don't them to eat it, eh? I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it's all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you've built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it be a great cosmic game of chess, it to be just very complicated Solitaire. fantasy religion humor life Neil Gaiman
93f6870 If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him. religion love James Baldwin
8bf8072 I think, well, I've had a shit of a life, all things considered. It wasn't fair. Everyone I've ever loved is dead, and my leg hurts all the bloody time... But I think, any God that can do sunsets like that, a different one every night... 'Strewth, well, you've got to respect the old bastard, haven't you? religion life sunsets Neil Gaiman
a8c75c7 "Once, when a religionist denounced me in unmeasured terms, I sent him a card saying, "I am sure you believe that I will go to hell when I die, and that once there I will suffer all the pains and tortures the sadistic ingenuity of your deity can devise and that this torture will continue forever. Isn't that enough for you? Do you have to call me bad names in addition?" religion humor rebuttal zealots Isaac Asimov
853f8f6 If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology. spirituality religion Karen Armstrong
7213e79 On the Disc, the Gods aren't so much worshipped, as they are blamed. religion Terry Pratchett
b1e10e0 According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it. religion G.K. Chesterton
5037dc3 I don't pray because it doesn't work. Prayer doesn't fix anything. Bad things happen anyway. religion Nicholas Sparks
52d952f Argue not concerning God,...re-examine all that you have been told at church or school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul... personal-faith religion inspirational Walt Whitman
87140bb But very quickly they all became grave again: for, as you know, there is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes. religion C.S. Lewis
b24113c Forgiveness is God's greatest gift religion inspirational forgiveness Dan Brown
d69b9ff See? This is why I'm not religious. I couldn't possibly keep my mouth shut long enough to get along with everyone else. religion humor Jim Butcher
97e6b0c Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. Every breath we take, every step we take, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment. religion inspirational serenity peace Thich Nhat Hanh
87c29cd The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model. heroes feminism women religion ayaan-hirsi-ali azar-nafisi heroines taliban-treatment-of-women women-in-afghanistan women-in-iraq women-s-rights-in-iran women-s-rights-movement-in-iran iran women-and-religion women-in-iran women-in-islam role-models theocracy iraq islam Christopher Hitchens
ff19394 The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led. religion Terry Pratchett
29d90cd "Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says, do what you like, guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting "Gotcha". It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it.' 'Why not?' 'Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end." religion Douglas Adams
9c4f120 "Professor Langdon,' called a young man with curly hair in the back row, 'if Masonry is not a secret society, not a corporation, and not a religion, then what is it?' 'Well, if you were to ask a Mason, he would offer the following definition: Masonry is a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.' 'Sounds to me like a euphemism for "freaky cult." ' 'Freaky, you say?' 'Hell yes!' the kid said, standing up. 'I heard what they do inside those secret buildings! Weird candlelight rituals with coffins, and nooses, and drinking wine out of skulls. Now that's freaky!' Langdon scanned the class. 'Does that sound freaky to anyone else?' 'Yes!' they all chimed in. Langdon feigned a sad sigh. 'Too bad. If that's too freaky for you, then I know you'll never want to join my cult.' Silence settled over the room. The student from the Women's Center looked uneasy. 'You're in a cult?' Langdon nodded and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'Don't tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god Ra, I kneel at the foot of an ancient instrument of torture and consume ritualistic symbols of blood and flesh.' The class looked horrified. Langdon shrugged. 'And if any of you care to join me, come to the Harvard chapel on Sunday, kneel beneath the crucifix, and take Holy Communion.' The classroom remained silent. Langdon winked. 'Open your minds, my friends. We all fear what we do not understand." -- religion freemasonry secret-society Dan Brown
5f5948f "Professor Langdon,' called a young man with curly hair in the back row, 'if Masonry is not a secret society, not a corporation, and not a religion, then what is it?' 'Well, if you were to ask a Mason, he would offer the following definition: Masonry is a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.' 'Sounds to me like a euphemism for "freaky cult." ' 'Freaky, you say?' 'Hell yes!' the kid said, standing up. 'I heard what they do inside those secret buildings! Weird candlelight rituals with coffins, and nooses, and drinking wine out of skulls. Now that's freaky!' Langdon scanned the class. 'Does that sound freaky to anyone else?' 'Yes!' they all chimed in. Langdon feigned a sad sigh. 'Too bad. If that's too freaky for you, then I know you'll never want to join my cult.' Silence settled over the room. The student from the Women's Center looked uneasy. 'You're in a cult?' Langdon nodded and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'Don't tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god Ra, I kneel at the foot of an ancient instrument of torture and consume ritualistic symbols of blood and flesh.' The class looked horrified. Langdon shrugged. 'And if any of you care to join me, come to the Harvard chapel on Sunday, kneel beneath the crucifix, and take Holy Communion.' The classroom remained silent. Langdon winked. 'Open your minds, my friends. We all fear what we do not understand." religion freemasonry secret-society Dan Brown
5f01b39 I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content. religion Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague De Camp
891eb13 The take-home message is that we should blame religion itself, not religious extremism - as though that were some kind of terrible perversion of real, decent religion. Voltaire got it right long ago: 'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' So did Bertrand Russell: 'Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do. religion religious-extremism Richard Dawkins
47b4649 Every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith--acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school. Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors. Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that we have proof the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical. religion god dan-brown Dan Brown
cbc8d24 Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave and eats a bread it does not harvest. Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening. Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block. Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting, and farewells him with hooting, only to welcome another with trumpeting again. Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strongmen are yet in the cradle. Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation. spirituality religion Kahlil Gibran
b0a97c4 Forgive me for being so ordinary while claiming to know so extraordinary a God. religion inspirational christian-life christian Jim Elliot
a5234c4 The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god). religion Terry Pratchett
dbf11d8 But where was God now, with heaven full of astronauts, and the Lord overthrown? I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible, I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to find a bowl of soup. As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed. religion life love philosophy lgbt Jeanette Winterson
c78e5c2 These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy...walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening. religion god hypocrisy Yann Martel
2702530 Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. religion prophets Umberto Eco
87f77ed If God is for us, who can be against us? reassurance christianity religion Anonymous
79ea06f If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it. religion inspirational moral-courage public-opinion dissent Abraham Lincoln
01531b4 I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves. fantasy religion illusions delusions Christopher Hitchens
a9f73fa If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated. religion idolatry atheism Voltaire
6c0f247 "No it's not!" said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god." "Therefore It Is A Religious Position," said Dorfl. "Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny." religion gods atheist Terry Pratchett
657f1dc What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat? murder religion fanaticism Voltaire
aca7297 There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise. Not Peter, not Paul, not any of those guys. He was a convicted thief, being executed. So don't knock the guys on death row. Maybe they know something you don't. good-and-evil prejudice heaven idealism jesus religion god life-lessons good-and-bad prejudices criminals Neil Gaiman
cba3636 It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows. religion Terry Pratchett
65c7c25 We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are. spirituality religion science freethinking Carl Sagan
b3e94ca I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light. religion god Elizabeth Gilbert
8cae3b7 A halo surrounded the grim reaper nun, Sister Maria. (By the way-I like this human idea of the grim reaper. I like the scythe. It amuses me.) religion Markus Zusak
44e01ef I have never, in all my life, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. The fact is that I feel no spiritual void. I have my philosophy of life, which does not include any aspect of the supernatural and which I find totally satisfying. I am, in short, a rationalist and believe only that which reason tells me is so. religion philosophy-of-life Isaac Asimov
9bb5509 But for me the sweetest contact with God has no form. I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep soft silence. The infinity of God's creation embraces me. religion god Michael Jackson
ec49833 Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance. religion skepticism Sam Harris
a13a626 I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim--so modestly and so humbly--to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world. fantasy religion god inspirational arrogance belief humility atheism modesty respect power Christopher Hitchens
128fcf9 All religions lead to the same God, and all deserve the same respect. Anyone who chooses a religion is also choosing a collective way for worshipping and sharing the mysteries. Nevertheless, that person is the only one responsible for his or her actions along the way and has no right to shift responsibility for any personal decisions on to that religion. politics religion paulo-coelho Paulo Coelho
a52ee37 So India's problem turns out to be the world's problem. What happened in India has happened in God's name. The problem's name is God. india religion salman rushdie Salman Rushdie
54870a4 If you want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, just watch the sunrise. earth world religion god lord sunrise Jeannette Walls
a9ba67a "Far better it is for you to say: "I am a sinner," than to say: "I have no need of religion." The empty can be filled, but the self-intoxicated have no room for God." christianity religion god sinners catholicism Fulton J. Sheen
6e2583d Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth? religion truth Bill Watterson
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