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ba830de Remember, sometimes you have to look beyond the weirdness. It's like the temple in ancient Jerusalem. If you went there, you'd see oxen being slaughtered and all sorts of things. But look beyond the weirdness, to what it means. religion A.J. Jacobs
d767d75 "God is that force that drives us to really see each other and to really behold each other and care for each other and respond to each other. And for me, that is actually enough. That cultivating it, that thinking about it, worshipping it, working towards it, taking care of it, nurturing it in myself, nurturing it in other people, that really is a life's work right there, and it doesn't have to be any bigger than that. God doesn't have to be out in the next solar system over bashing asteroids together. It's plenty, just the God that I work with." Kate Braestrup" care community compassion empathy god life-force love religion soul spirit wisdom Krista Tippett
fef62ac there's no better system than our own morality, not law, not science, not religion... just decency. law morality philosophy religion science Rebecca McNutt
729190e If God is God He is not good, If God is good He is not God; Take the even, take the odd.... logical-thinking religion the-problem-of-evil Archibald MacLeish
401af74 "He gave us taste buds, then filled the world with incredible flavors like chocolate and cinnamon and all the other spices. He gave us eyes to perceive color and then filled the world with a rainbow of shades. He gave us sensitive ears and then filled the world with rhythms and music. Your capacity for enjoyment is evidence of God's love for you. He could have made the world tasteless, colorless, and silent. The Bible says that God "richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." He didn't have to do it, but he did, because He loves us." christianity christmas gift god holiday inspirational jesus joy love peace purpose religion worth worthy Rick Warren
4005eb3 I've fought for and against pretty much every cause there is. There will always be war of some kind. At first it was over fertile soil and good water, then precious metal and then the most popular version of human disagreement, 'My God is better than your God.' Whether you draw your faith from Jeremiah and Jesus, Allah and Muhammad or Brahma and Buddha, it doesn't matter. Someone will tell you you're wrong, and he'll fight you over it. Me, I believe in aliens, and to hell with all earthly gods. In the grand scheme of a trillion planets in the universe we're just not that damn important anyway. And humans are rotten to the core. humans religion war David Baldacci
a3798c0 Well, where is God,' said Mrs. Coulter, 'if he's alive? And why doesn't he speak anymore? At the beginning of the world, God walked in the Garden and spoke with Adam and Eve. Then he began to withdraw, and he forbade Moses to look at his face. Later, in the time of Daniel, he was aged--he was the Ancient of Days. Where is he now? Is he still alive, at some inconceivable age, decrepit and demented, unable to think or act or speak and unable to die, a rotten hulk? And if that is his condition, wouldn't it be the most merciful thing, the truest proof of our love for God, to seek him out and give him the gift of death? philosophy religion Philip Pullman
99e4918 He had thought love as a policy made a lot of sense for those who could manage it, and anyone who could manage it belonged in religious life. The rest of us have to struggle with more ordinary love, the common or garden variety: love as a crippling condition. Love as a syndrome. religion Gregory Maguire
3b41102 "Say you could view a time-lapse film of our planet: what would you see? Transparent images moving through light, "an infinite storm of beauty." The beginning is swaddled in mists, blasted by random blinding flashes. Lava pours and cools; seas boil and flood. Clouds materialize and shift; now you can see the earth's face through only random patches of clarity. The land shudders and splits, like pack ice rent by a widening lead. Mountains burst up, jutting and dull and soften before your eyes, clothed in forests like felt. The ice rolls up, grinding green land under water forever; the ice rolls back. Forests erupt and disappear like fairy rings. The ice rolls up-mountains are mowed into lakes, land rises wet from the sea like a surfacing whale- the ice rolls back. A blue-green streaks the highest ridges, a yellow-green spreads from the south like a wave up a strand. A red dye seems to leak from the north down the ridges and into the valleys, seeping south; a white follows the red, then yellow-green washes north, then red spreads again, then white, over and over, making patterns of color too swift and intricate to follow. Slow the film. You see dust storms, locusts, floods, in dizzying flash frames. Zero in on a well-watered shore and see smoke from fires drifting. Stone cities rise, spread, and then crumble, like patches of alpine blossoms that flourish for a day an inch above the permafrost, that iced earth no root can suck, and wither in a hour. New cities appear, and rivers sift silt onto their rooftops; more cities emerge and spread in lobes like lichen on rock. The great human figures of history, those intricate, spirited tissues that roamed the earth's surface, are a wavering blur whose split second in the light was too brief an exposure to yield any images. The great herds of caribou pour into the valleys and trickle back, and pour, a brown fluid. Slow it down more, come closer still. A dot appears, like a flesh-flake. It swells like a balloon; it moves, circles, slows, and vanishes. This is your life." beauty belief consciousness creation curiosity disbelief energy enoughness epiphany exploration exultant faith fate fearless fire free freedom gaps god grace growth hallelujah humility illumination intricacy joy joyful joyfulness life-force light living-in-the-present-moment mindfulness multiplicity mystery nature philosopher-s-stone philosophy poem poet poetry power praise prayer prayers praying religion religious-diversity ring-the-bells science seeing seeking soul spirit stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it tolerance walking watching wonder Annie Dillard
e120953 I'm dating myself, but this was before Jesus Christ. We worshiped a God named Sashatiba, who had five eyes, including one on the Adam's apple. religion David Sedaris
3afe6b5 Just as Prometheus delivered stolen fire to man, so Eve, and the serpent, delivered man into self-consciousness, setting him up, were it not for his short lifespan, as rival to God. At the same time, man's self-consciousness removed him from nature into a life of toil, doubt, fear, guilt, shame, blame, enmity, loneliness, and frailty--and the product of this separation, the fruit and flower of this exile, is, of course, culture. 'God,' said the writer Victor Hugo, 'made only water, but man made wine. consciousness creation-myths culture greek-mythology religion wine Neel Burton
cd6800f They have lied to us. They can't keep us from dying, so They lie to us about death. A cooperative structure of lies. What have they ever given us in return for the trust, the love--They actually say 'love'--we're supposed to owe Them? Can They keep us from even catching cold? from lice, from being alone? from anything? Before the Rocket we went on believing, because we wanted to. But the Rocket can penetrate, from the sky, at any given point. Nowhere is safe. We can't believe Them any more. Not if we are still sane, and love the truth. futility-of-war love lying religion truth Thomas Pynchon
a1a49da The mechanism by which spirituality becomes passionate is metaphor. An ineffable God requires metaphor not only to be imagined but to be approached, exhorted, evaded, confronted, struggled with, and loved. Through metaphor, the vividness, intensity, and meaningfulness of ordinary experiences becomes the basis of a passionate spirituality. An ineffable God becomes vital through metaphor: The Supreme Being. The Prime Mover. The Creator. The Almighty. The Father. The King of Kings. Shepherd. Potter. Lawgiver. Judge. Mother. Lover. Breath. The vehicle by which we are moved in passionate spirituality is metaphor. The mechanism of such metaphor is bodily. It is a neural mechanism that recruits our abilities to perceive, to move, to feel, and to envision in the service not only of theoretical and philosophical thought, but of spiritual experience. cognitive-science embodied-mind god metaphor religion spirituality George Lakoff
2d5bd68 The Almighty can hardly be such a fool as the churches make out. If you keep His laws I don't think He can care a packet of pins whether you believe in Him or not. religion spirituality W. Somerset Maugham
cd7deed Who knows whence this creation had its origin? He, whether He fashioned it or whether He did not, He, who surveys it all from the highest heaven, He knows--or maybe even He does not know. -- Rig Veda, X.129 1 'Maybe even He does not know!' I love a faith that raises such a fundamental question about no less a Supreme Being than the Creator of the Universe Himself. Maybe He does not know, indeed. Who are we mere mortals to claim a knowledge of which even He cannot be certain? india nationalism religion Shashi Tharoor
d17b919 Human beings, to me, are rather like electrical appliances that need to be charged regularly, and prayer is a way of plugging into that charge. prayer religion Shashi Tharoor
c333b9b Proof of the beginning of time probably ranks as the most theologically significant theorem. This great significance arises from the theorem establishing that the universe must be caused by some Entity capable of creating the universe entirely independent of space and time. Such an entity matches the attributes of the God of the Bible but is contradicted by the gods of the eastern (and indeed all other) religions who create within space and time. astrophysics big-bang god religion science Hugh Ross
c0bd86c When Frey asked students to draw the creation, the other kids drew animals and Adam and Eve. Caroline covered her paper in black crayon, then held it up to reveal she had punched out holes for the stars and the moon. 'And then there was light', she said... religion Christopher Andersen
bd86301 But I'm not such a good judge of monsters; I don't know if the idea of a good death repels me now because it's in itself repellent, or because I no longer have the courage to seek such a thing. martyrdom religion roman-catholicism Tim Winton
b3a36b1 One must die to an old way of being in order to enter a new way of being... salvation is resurrection to a new way of being here and now. philosophy religion spirituality Marcus J. Borg
b1322b1 "The relationship among faith, knowledge, and belief is suggested by a story involving the famous depth psychologist Carl Jung. In the last year of his life, he was interviewed for a BBC television documentary. The interviewer asked him, "Dr. Jung, do you believe in God?" Jung said, "Believe? I do not believe in God - I know." The point: the more one knows God, the less faith as belief is involved. But faith as belief still has a role: it can provide a basis for responding even when one does not know for sure, and it can also get one through periods of time in which firsthand experiences of God are lacking." philosophy religion spirituality Marcus J. Borg
d741b34 His point, again and again, was that truth wasn't the property of any one faith and that, if you looked closely, you found a ground where they all converged. religion truth Jeffrey Eugenides
ad75303 My life of conversation leads me to reimagine the very meaning of hope. I define hope as distinct from optimism or idealism. It has nothing to do with wishing. It references reality at every turn and reveres truth. It lives open eyed and wholeheartedly with the darkness that is woven ineluctably into the light of life and sometimes seems to overcome it. Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory. enoughness faith habit hope on-being religion spirit spiritual truth virtue wholeheartedness Krista Tippett
aa34709 When facts are treated as if they were opinions, when there is no universal standard by which to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in the reporting of events of the day, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe, where there is no possibility of reaching any conclusion not predetermined by those who interpret the official, divinely inspired text. dominionism fanaticism religion science truth Chris Hedges
a564d42 All these schools of though gradually transformed into legal institutions, the diversity of ideas and freedom of opinion that characterized their early development gave way to rigid formalism, strict adherence to precedent, and an almost complete stultification of independent though religion Reza Aslan
a4845cd [...] there can be no a priori moral framework in a modern democracy [...] religion Reza Aslan
dae18d9 It's not like the Middle Ages, when you had the Church and the aristocracy keeping everything nice and stagnant. progress religion Kevin Hearne
dbe3f8c Perhaps all of us are crazy, Ona says. Of course we're all crazy, says Mejal. How can we not be? feminism religion Miriam Toews
a05db45 Der wesentliche Punkt ist hier, dass Menschen mit szientistischem Gedankengut wie Atkins oder Dawkins nicht unterscheiden zwischen Mechanismus und Urheberschaft. creation creationism dawkins religion science scientism John C. Lennox
9bf72f8 "As the ninth-century legal scholar Malik ibn Anas, founder of the Maliki school of law, once quipped, "This religion is a science, so pay close attention to those from whom you learn it." islam religion science Reza Aslan
dd1505c "I remember my father telling me about England's redrawing of India's boundaries when it became independent. They wanted to separate the Hindu from the Muslim, but they used outdated maps. Twelve million people had to relocate because the Brits screwed it up so badly. And a half million people died during the resulting chaos. And before that, Iraq was unilaterally cobbled together, causing many of the conflicts we see today. There are dozens of such examples. The strong countries smashing the weaker ones and then avoiding responsibility later for the very problems they caused." "You keep proving my point, Tom, that we're rotten to the core." "My point is we never learn!" religion war David Baldacci
9526c63 Never take away anything if you have nothing better to offer. Beware of stripping a patient who can't bear the chill of reality. And don't exhaust yourself by jousting with religious magic: you're no match for it. The thirst for religion is too strong, its roots too deep, its cultural reinforcement too powerful. reality religion Irvin D. Yalom
8fe8f3e "Goruyorsun ya, ailede herkes genellikle iyi. Oyleyse neden kucuk Isa bize yakinlik gostermiyor? Dr. Faulhaber'in evine gidersin masanin bir suru seyler tepeleme dolu oldugunu gorursun. Villas-Boaslarda da oyle. Dr. Adaucto Luz'dan hic soz etmeyelim." Ilk kez, Totoca'nin aglamak uzere oldugunu gordum. "Bu nedenle, kucuk Isanin yalniz is olsun diye yoksul dogmak istedigini dusunuyorum. Sonra da, yalnizca zenginlerin zahmete degdigini gormustu... Neyse, birakalim bunlari. Belki soylediklerim cok gunah." fairness poverty religion sad José Mauro de Vasconcelos
8cb309a I once read a short story about some cannibals who didn't turn their victims into steaks and chops and roasts; they made them all into sausages. Because when you're eating a sausage you don't think so much about what you're eating. It's the same with communion wafers. .......... My point is, the miracle of the Holy Communion is when the priest turns these little white disks into the flesh of Jesus Christ. They call it transubstantiation. So, if you buy that, then the host the priest places on your tongue is actually a silver of Jesus meat. But they make the host as different from meat as they can, so even though communion is a form of cannibalism, nobody gets grossed out. Like with the sausages. god humor religion transubstantiation Pete Hautman
8ae633d "Hindu fundamentalism," because Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals: no organized church, no compulsory beliefs or rites of worship, no single sacred book. The name itself denotes something less, and more, than a set of theological beliefs. In many languages -- French and Persian amongst them -- the word for "Indian" is "Hindu." Originally "Hindu" simply meant the people beyond the river Sindhu, or Indus. But the Indus is now in Islamic Pakistan; and to make matters worse, the word "Hindu" did not exist in any Indian language till its use by foreigners gave Indians a term for self-definition." india religion Shashi Tharoor
7cabb24 GOD HAS TAKEN YOUR MOTHER. MY HANDS WERE THE INSTRUMENT. GOD HAS TAKEN MY HANDS. I AM GOD'S INSTRUMENT. fate religion John Irving
730bcf0 What we need is a new God. Somebody who knows what the fuck he's doing. god higher-power religion Edward P. Jones
e550db3 We don't need the gospels, we need the fiery men who wrote them! christianity religion religious-hypocrisy the-gospels Rudolfo Anaya
e57a58e Dear God, I don't want my fear to be a barrier to the blessings you are trying to bestow. Cast out my fear, and help me to trust your perfect love. But also grant me a full measure of wisdom. Do not let me be led astray by my own desires. If it is not your will that I pursue a relationship with Levi, I pray that you will stop me. Make your message so clear that I cannot argue it away. Protect me, Lord, and show me the way I should go. faith-quotes godly-woman historical inspirational prayer relationships religion wisdom Karen Witemeyer
e5c539f A three-day-old baby is a saint?' Willibald flapped his hands. 'Miracles happen, lord,' he said, 'they really do. They say little Rumwold sang God's praises whenever he suckled.' 'I feel much the same when I get hild of a tit,' I said, 'so does that make me a saint? religion saints tits Bernard Cornwell
6faf505 I raised my hand and asked if God was a spirit. And he said yes, He was. So I asked if it was right that a spirit was different from a person because it didn't have a body, wasn't material. And when he agreed, I asked how, if God was a spirit, He could be a man, if He didn't have a body or anything. chiara god religion Donna Leon
e87c3f3 A meaningless life for a human being has none of the dignity of animal unselfconsciousness; we cannot simply eat, sleep, hunt and reproduce - we are meaning-seeking creatures. The Western world has done away with religion but not with religious impulses; we seem to need some higher purpose, some point to our lives - money and leisure, social progress, are just not enough. religion Jeanette Winterson
4c54112 "Mahatma Gandhi was as devout a Rambhakt as you can get -- he died from a Hindu assassin's bullet with the words "He Ram" on his lips -- but he always said that for him, Ram and Rahim were the same deity, and that if Hinduism ever taught hatred of Islam or of non-Hindus, "it is doomed to destruction." india islam religion Shashi Tharoor
4c1cf5d Religion was all about getting dumbasses to line up and sign up, making people pay today for heaven tomorrow. religion Robert Ferrigno
49f8fda "Many say that it is ethnocentric to claim that our religion is superior to others. Yet isn't that very statement ethnocentric? Most non-Western cultures have no problem saying that their culture and religion is best. The idea that it is wrong to do so is deeply rooted in Western traditions of self-criticism and individualism. To charge others with the "sin" of ethnocentrism is really a way of saying, "Our culture's approach to other cultures is superior to yours." culture relativism religion Timothy J. Keller
ef08431 "Cease, daughter!" said the priest at last in a trembling voice. "I cannot grant absolution, no priest could..." historical-fiction religion Anya Seton
3e81aa2 Don't you see it Jaxie Clackton, you are an instrument of God.' 'Oh, I said, you mad fucker. You been out under the moon too long. premonition religion Tim Winton
f23a566 ..if you put people on a diet, they start thinking about food. Or if you make someone stop smoking, all they think about is cigarettes. It seems logical enough to me that if you tell a person he can't have sex, he's going to be obsessive about the subject. Then to give him the power to tell other people how to run their sex lives, well, that's just asking for trouble. In a way, it's like having a blind person teach Art History, isn't it? paola religion sex Donna Leon
f3051b1 Mike wasn't religious, but it was pretty cool to imagine a superghost carrying you when shit got a little too real. religion Aric Davis
f74874d Buddhism spreads by people converting out of their own wish for peace and right action. But power condenses around those willing to use force. peace power religion war Kim Stanley Robinson
214e605 Solange Gott ein Mann ist, nicht ein Paar, kann das Leben einer Frau, nur so bleiben wie es heute ist, namlich erbarmlich, die Frau als Proletarier der Schopfung, wenn auch noch so elegant verkleidet. frau gleichberechtigung gott religion Max Frisch
1c5e5f7 Compassion has been advocated by all the great faiths because it has been found to be the safest and surest means of attaining enlightenment. religion Karen Armstrong
fd1e96a Although churches seem the most natural space to perform spiritual awakening, the disconcerting reality is that many people in Western society see churches more as museums of religion than sacred stages that dramatize the movement of God's spirit. religion spirituality Diana Butler Bass
cf7bb98 BERNARDA.-- Las mujeres en la iglesia no deben mirar mas hombre que al oficiante, y a ese porque tiene faldas. Volver la cabeza es buscar el calor de la pana. MUJER 1.-- (En voz baja) !Vieja lagarta recocida! LA PONCIA.-- (Entre dientes) !Sarmentosa por calentura de varon! BERNARDA.-- (Dando un golpe de baston en el suelo) !Alabado sea Dios! TODAS.-- (Santiguandose) Sea por siempre bendito y alabado. españa honor honour la-casa-de-bernarda-alba mourning religion spain spanish-literature teatro theater theatre theatre-plays Federico García Lorca
d202a44 esas comparaciones de prometido, esposo, amante celestial y de matrimonio eterno, que se repiten en los sermones, le despertaban en lo hondo del corazon ternezas inesperadas religion Flaubert Gustave
59a24b3 Christ, would you look at that shite? Supes an' religion, the two worst things on the planet. religion superheroes worst Garth Ennis
d5dbd75 I guess God can be whatever God wants to be. Maybe God's so great that even our little rules about material reality and our tiny little universe don't mean anything to God. You ever think of that? religion Donna Leon
6dd69b3 Religion lives not in dogma, but utterly within the virtues of love and self-sacrifice. Without those, there is no future I can bear to stand, nor hope for the continuance of God's creation. It is not blasphemy to say that the work of Jesus the redeemer was and is to break the chains of the realms of darkness. And set free the creature from the power of sin. religion salvation Warren Ellis
7265df9 If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion... But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion. religion Ursula K. Le Guin
f3b6e97 But while I fill up my mouth with prayers, they bring no comfort. My words rattle against each other like the last beech leaves on a winter branch, and though a hard wind scours the forest, it cannot free them from the bough; it will not lift them upward into the wide white sky. praying religion sadness Geraldine Brooks
f3d5edd "We all live as if it is better to seek peace instead of war, to tell the truth instead of lying, to care and nurture rather than to destroy. We believe that these choices are not pointless, that it matters which way we choose to live. Yet if the Cosmic Bench is truly empty, then "who sez" that one choice is better than the others? We can argue about it, but it's just pointless arguing, endless litigation. If the Bench is truly empty, then the whole span of human civilization, even if it lasts a few million years, will be just an infinitesimally brief spark in relation to the oceans of dead time that preceded it and will follow it. There will be no one around to remember any of it. Whether we are loving or cruel in the end would make no difference at all. Once we realize this situation there are two options. One is that we can simply refuse to think out the implications of all this. We can hold on to our intellectual belief in an empty Bench and yet live as if our choices are meaningful and as if there is a difference between love and cruelty. Why would we do that? A cynic might say that this is a way of "having one's cake and eating it, too." That is, you can get the benefit of having a God without the cost of following him. But there is no integrity in that. The other option is to recognize that you do know there is a God. You could accept the fact that you live as if beauty and love have meaning, as if there is meaning in life, as if human beings have inherent dignity--all because you know God exists. It is dishonest to live as if he is there and yet fail to acknowledge the one who has given you all these gifts." philosophy religion Timothy J. Keller
c92ac73 The medieval European, who shared the fundamental assumptions of his Muslim contemporary, would have agreed with him in ascribing religious movements to religious causes, and would have sought no further for an explanation. But when Europeans ceased to accord first place to religion in their thoughts, sentiments, interests, and loyalties, they also ceased to admit that other men, in other times and places, could have done so. To a rationalistic and materialistic generation, it was inconceivable that such great debates and mighty conflicts could have involved no more than 'merely' religious issues. And so historians, once they had passed the stage of amused contempt, devised a series of explanations, setting forth for what they described as the 'real' or 'ultimate' significance 'underlying' religious movements and differences. The clashes and squabbles of the early churches, the great Schism, the Reformation, all were reinterpreted in terms of motives and interests reasonable by the standards of the day--and for religious movements of Islam too explanations were found that tallied with the outlook and interests of the finders. islam religion theology Bernard Lewis
e1fd7ce In the lives of saints I look for confirmation of excess. To them it is not strange to spend nights on a mountain or to forgo food. For them, the visionary and the everyday coincide. Above all, they have no domestic virtues, preferring intensity to comfort. Despite their inhospitable ways, they ferment with unexpected life, like those bleak railway cuttings that host horizontal dandelions. They know there is no passion without pain. intensity pain passion religion saints visionaries Jeanette Winterson
77a999b Saeed went with his father to pray on the first Friday after the curfew's commencement, and Saeed prayer for peace and Saeed's father prayed for Saeed and the preacher in his sermon urged all the congregants to pry for the righteous to emerge victorious in the war but carefully refrained from specifying on which side of the conflict he thought the righteous to be. prayer religion Mohsin Hamid
218477c The priest Zadok looked stricken. He had hoped to bargain information for a higher price. Now I, as a prophet, had given it to David for free. manipulation religion word-of-god Geraldine Brooks
835ebe7 Saeed went with his father to pray on the first Friday after the curfew's commencement, and Saeed prayed for peace and Saeed's father prayed for Saeed and the preacher in his sermon urged all the congregants to pry for the righteous to emerge victorious in the war but carefully refrained from specifying on which side of the conflict he thought the righteous to be. prayer religion Mohsin Hamid
4156f2a "Salome interrupts. We're not members! she repeats. We are the women of Molotschna. The entire colony of Molotschna is built on the foundation of patriarchy (translator's note: Salome didn't use the word "patriarchy" - I inserted it in the place of Salome's curse, of mysterious origin, loosely translated as "talking through the flowers"), where the women live our their days as mute, submissive, and obedient servants. Animals. Fourteen-year-old boys are expected to give us orders, to determine our fates, to vote on our excommunications, to speak at the burials of our own babies while we remain silent, to interpret the Bible for us, to lead us in worship, to punish us! We are not members, Mariche. We are commodities." religion women Miriam Toews
3e45856 How do I pray? Not in any organized form, really; I go to temples sometimes with my family, but they leave me cold. I think of prayer as something intensely personal, a way of reaching my hands out towards my maker. I recite some mantras my parents taught me as a child; there is something reassuring about those ancient words, hallowed by use and repetition over thousands of years. prayer religion temples Shashi Tharoor
ea639a3 Her favourite song was 'God Has Blotted Them Out,' which was meant to be about sins, but really was about anyone who had ever annoyed her, which was everyone. She just didn't like anyone and she just didn't like life. Life was a burden to be carried as far as the grave and then dumped. Life was a Vale of Tears. Life was a pre-death experience. death god life misanthropy religion revenge vengeance Jeanette Winterson
ade43df One contradiction of the human heart is this: God refuses to see any one person as unique in his or her relationship to Him, and yet we humans see each other as bottomless wells of creativity and uniqueness. god-s-love philosophy philosophy-of-life philosophy-of-religion religion Douglas Coupland
a256821 "Religion was at it's best when it emphasized spiritual experiences rather than received dogma. "The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith, rather than living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it," he told me. "I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don't. It's a great mystery." faith religion Walter Isaacson
35567fa Nunca discutas sobre Dios. Lo mejor es decir 'Estoy de acuerdo contigo'. Entonces vas a tu casa y rezas lo que tu quieres. Esta es mi idea para que las personas esten en paz con la religion. humor religion Elizabeth Gilbert
1ae189f People need God the way a three-year-old needs a chainsaw. religion Ursula K. Le Guin
2d2698e Comme ils sont dans l'erreur ceux qui voient en Elua un dieu bien delicat, fait uniquement pour etre adore par les amants aux yeux tournes vers les etoiles. Mais que les guerriers clament donc leur foi dans des dieux de sang et de tonnerre ; l'amour est dur, plus dur que l'acier - et trois fois plus cruel. Il est inexorable comme la maree, et la vie et la mort marchent sur ses brisees. love religion Jacqueline Carey
988eb60 "Remember!" she called, as she followed him up the narrow ladders towards the bridge. "It is only a matter of scale and experience. You are not a fraction of the whole. You are a version of the whole! Time will seem to eddy and stall. This is scale. Everything is sentient, but scale alters perception. The time of a tree is not your time." It was as if she shouted to him all she had meant to teach him before this moment. "To the snail the foot which comes from nowhere and crushes him is as natural a disaster as a hurricane; it cannot be appealed to and is impossible to anticipate. The time of a star is not our time. Equity is the natural condition of the multiverse. There are things to fear in the colour fields, but not the fields themselves! Remember, Sam, we are God in miniature!" faith god life philosophy religion Michael Moorcock
16fc42b Faith, he had learned that night in front of the flickering television, was most glorious when it was most untouched by reason. religion Michael Thomas Ford
922cff1 The mystery and art of living are as grand as the sweep of a lifetime and the lifetime of a species. And they are as close as beginning, quietly, to mine whatever grace and beauty, whatever healing and attentiveness, are possible in this moment and the next and the next one after that. attention awe beauty diversity enlightenment god grace humanity life life-force love mindfulness mystery on-being religion spirit wisdom wonder Krista Tippett
26d55e4 Like most people born into a religious tradition, my faith was as familiar to me as my skin, and just as disregardable. religion Reza Aslan
d3521a9 As a species we are a predominantly intelligent and exploratory animal, and beliefs harnessed to this fact will be the most beneficial for us. A belief in the validity of the acquisition of knowledge and a scientific understanding of the world we live in, the creation and appreciation of aesthetic phenomena in all their many forms, and the broadening and deepening of our range of experiences in day-to-day living, is rapidly becoming the 'religion' of our time. Experience and understanding are our rather abstract god-figures, and ignorance and stupidity will make them angry. Our schools and universities are our religious training centres, our libraries, museums, art galleries, theatres, concert halls and sports arenas are our places of communal worship. At home we worship with our books. newspapers. magazines, radios and television sets. In a sense, we still believe in an after-life, because part of the reward obtained from our creative works is the feeling that, through them, we will 'live on' after we are dead. Like all religions, this one has its dangers, but if we have to have one, and it seems that we do, then it certainly appears to be the one most suitable for the unique biological qualities of our species. Its adoption by an ever-growing majority of the world population can serve as a compensating and reassuring source of optimism to set against the pessimism (...) concerning our immediate future as a surviving species. belief immortality literature religion science Desmond Morris
6460601 Creo que las distintas religiones son puertas diferentes para una misma casa. A veces creo que la casa existe, y otras veces que no. Ese es el gran misterio. pensamiento religion Walter Isaacson
111cf37 If you ask a conservative for a statement of his political convictions, he may well say that he has none, and that the greatest heresy of modernity is precisely to see politics as a matter of convictions as though one could recuperate, at the level of political purpose, the consoling certainty which once was granted by religious faith. In another sense, however, conservatism does rest in a system of belief, and is opposed as much to the theory as to the practice of socialist and liberal politics. conservatives convictions liberalism religion socialism Roger Scruton
0bc579f A common response in surveys of religious attitudes is to say something like, 'I don't go to church, but I have my own personal idea of God.' This kind of statement makes me in turn react like a philosopher. Soppy, I cry. You have your own personal idea of God, but does God have His own personal idea of you? Because that's what matters. Whether He's an old man with a white beard sitting in the sky, or a life force, or a disinterested prime mover, or a clockmaker, or a woman, or a nebulous moral force, or nothing at all, what counts is what He, She, It, or Nothing thinks of you rather than you of them. god religion Julian Barnes
80cf76c "Thou shalt have one God only; who Would be at the expense of two? No graven images may be Worshipped, except the currency: Swear not at all; for, for thy curse Thine enemy is none the worse: At church on Sunday to attend Will serve to keep the world thy friend: Honour thy parents; that is all From whom advancement may befall: Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive Officiously to keep alive: Do not adultery commit; Advantage rarely comes of it: Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat, When it's so lucrative to cheat: Bear not false witness; let the lie Have time on its own wings to fly: religion satire sin ten-commandments Arthur Hugh Clough
318f20a A Catholic gets it early. Incense, organ music, ashes on the forehead, wafer on the tongue. The best things shimmer with fear. religion Don DeLillo
0a6d920 All at once I felt myself haunted by a terrible vision, of a world without guidance: a land of emptiness, where all was ruled by the madness of chance. How could one endure such a place, where all significance was lost? I myself would mean nothing, but would merely be a kind of self-invention: a speck upon the wind, calling itself Wilson. I felt my spirit waver, as if it were toppling into the abyss before me. humor religion Matthew Kneale
cd89da4 "Perhaps no one religion contains all 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. Or perhaps the elves are right and there are no gods. But how can I know for sure?" - Pg 479 Brisingr" religion Christopher Paolini
609817a Dios impuso a los hombres el deber de dominar a las mujeres que son, fundamentalmente, debiles y estupidas. religion si-hubiera-espinas V.C. Andrews
8501456 When does belief become justification? When does right become rationale and crusade become crime? exploit naive religion Libba Bray
562c833 Become a great artist. That is the only way to justify what you are doing to everyone's life.'... I did not understand what he meant. I did not feel I had to justify anything... I did not want to paint in order to justify anything, I wanted to paint because I wanted to paint. I wanted to paint the same way my father wanted to travel and work for the Rebbe. My father worked for Torah. I worked for - what? How could I explain it? For beauty? No. Many of the pictures I painted were not beautiful. For what, then? For a truth I did not know how to put into words. For truth I could only bring to life by means of color and line and texture and form. judaism religion social-pressure truth Chaim Potok
022bc4c Their reliance on biblical quotations does not augur well for their for their openness to moral reasoning.... moral-philosophy religion Peter Singer
b8e6c9f But my mother wanted her children to be educated by nuns and priests all dressed in black, the way it had been done down through the generations with her people. Taught by people who had a firm grasp of how big and awful the world could be. life nuns parochial-schools priests religion religious-education schools Edward P. Jones
f33f573 I'm always running into the Sunday God of churchgoing Christians and cannot help noticing that he doesn't help out much on weekdays. letters religion soul-of-the-age Hermann Hesse
99577bb I cannot pray. I talk to God through my sculpture and painting.' 'That's also prayer.' He smiled faintly, the morning sun on his face. 'The Rebbe said precisely that. You are following the party line, Asher Lev. But we know it is not the same thing, don't we? religion Chaim Potok
01d0f67 [...]every study of the gods, of everyone's gods, is a revelation of vengeance toward the innocent religion John Irving
535b4e0 Dr. Murray made it clear to me before I left that a woman who enhoys the Act is as loose as a harlot. God gives pleasure in it only to husbands. Women are the source of evil and temptation, therefore women are to blame when men fall into fleshly error. It was Eve who seduced Adam, Eve who entered into league with the serpent, who was the Devil in disguise. So the only pleasure women are allowed is in their children. men-and-women religion sex Colleen McCullough
c812a16 It seems [...] that the Native American 'brain smasher' and the ancient Egyptian goddess in the vignette from the Fifth Hour of the Duat both serve exactly the same function, namely, the annihilation and permanent destruction of unworthy souls on the afterlife journey. There are differences in the traditions, to be sure, as one would expect if they descended from a remote common ancestor many millennia ago and then evolved separately, but the fundamental similarities of the role are unmissable. A further point arising from this material has to do with the more general issue of the trials and tribulations faced by the soul on its postmortem journey. That the precise character of these obstacles should vary between ancient Egypt and ancient Native America is only to be expected. Even so, the striking similarities in the core structure of the 'story'--physical death, a journey of the soul on land, a leap to the sky involving Orion followed by a further journey with perils and challenges to be faced, through the valley of the Milky Way--all argue for some as yet unexplained connection. journey orion religion souls source tradition Graham Hancock
d540c9c That summer, in any case, all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of the world, rose up like a wall between the world and me, and drove me into the church. race-and-racism-in-america religion James Baldwin
7875585 Agama bukan sekadar ritual dan tata cara. Ada makna di balik ritual dan tata cara itu. religion Yann Martel
38e825e Christianity is supposed to be all about love but it's utterly useless when you're love. love religion Jane Gardam
41068b4 "Above all, as a Hindu I belong to the only major religion in the world that does not claim to be the only true religion. I find it immensely congenial to be able to face my fellow human beings of other faiths without being burdened by the conviction that I am embarked upon a "true path" that they have missed." india religion Shashi Tharoor
6a700c9 "In describing the ways that religious and other types of communities appropriate and understand their histories, among both fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists, the sociologist Anthony Giddens utilizes the term "reflexivity" and states that it is the characteristic of "all human action." Reflexivity takes place when individuals and/or communities utilize their perceptions of their histories as a way of guiding their present and future actions. For Giddens, tradition is a means of "handling time and space, which asserts any particular activity or experience with the community of past, present, and future, these in turn being structured by recurrent social practices." In light of this, tradition is a set of entities which religious communities and cultures continually reconstruct within certain parameters. Religions are not completely static in that almost every new generation reinvents the religious and cultural inheritance from the generations that preceded it." fundamentalism islam islamism religion sociology Jon Armajani
2249a68 "It's not unreasonable [...] to suppose that some kind of cosmic "sky-ground" religion lay behind the alignments to the solstices and the equinoxes at Watson Brake and at the other early sites--a religion sufficiently robust to ensure the continuous successful transmission of a system of geometry, astronomy, and architecture over thousands of years. John Clark is in no doubt. 'The evidence,' he says, 'suggests very old and widely disseminated knowledge about how to build large sites. The building lore persisted remarkably intact for so long that I think we can, and must, assume that it was part of special knowledge tied to ritual practice.' Where did this special knowledge come from before it appeared at Watson Brake?" knowledge monument-building religion transmission Graham Hancock
0a28c2e The Pope is often an embarrassment. Each Pope nurses his own foibles and follies, pet truths and pet hates, and all must be accommodated within the seamless seemingly unchanging whole of Catholic Truth. Often the Popes contradict one another, and even more often, they contradict the great masters they reanimate to support their own certainties. The theologians take it as a joke. They are interested in the power of the Church and her authority. Power, authority and revenues, are what they are there to protect. They can dye black white. They do. hypocrisy pope power religion Jeanette Winterson
48aa1d6 "The refusal to examine Islamic culture and traditions, the sordid dehumanization of Muslims, and the utter disregard for the intellectual traditions and culture of one of the world's great civilizations are characteristic of those who disdain self-reflection and intellectual inquiry. Confronting this complexity requires work and study rather than a retreat into slogans and cliches. And enlightened, tolerant civilizations have flourished outside the orbit of the United Sates and Europe. The ruins of the ancient Mughal capital, Fatehpur Sikri, lie about 100 miles south of Delhi. The capital was constructed by the emperor Akbar the Great at the end of the sixteenth century. The emperor's court was filled with philosophers, mystics and religious scholars, including Sunni, Sufi, and Shiite Muslims, Hindu followers of Shiva and Vishnu, as well as atheists, Christians, Jains, Jews , Buddhists and Zoroastrians. They debated ethics and beliefs. He forbade any person to be discriminated against on the basis of belief and declared that everyone was free to follow any religion. This took place as the Inquisition was at its height in Spain and Portugal, and as Giordano Bruno was being burnt at the stake in Rome's Campo de Fiori. culture islam religion Chris Hedges
499aff9 Then I brought up the obvious, that the physical vulnerabilities of a woman can be traced to that most important function of human accomplishments, the absorption of her strength in carrying, nursing and rearing children. I have always known that this one fact doomed females to a subordinate status in all societies. Instead of attaining honour for being producers of life, we are penalized! To my mind, this fact is the scandal of civilization! islamic muslim-women muslim-world religion society Jean Sasson
35c6539 Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference(a grievance or complaint) against another, readily pardoning each other; even as the Lord has [freely] forgiven you, so must you also [forgive]. ( Colossians 3:13 ) god love religion self-help spirituality Joyce Meyer
a78cd24 When you look at the planet from low orbit, the impact of the Himalayas on Earth's climate seems obvious. It creates the rain shadow to beat all rain shadows, standing athwart the latitude of the trade winds and squeezing all the rain out of them before they head southwest, thus supplying eight of the Earth's mightiest rivers, but also parching not only the Gobi to the immediate north, but also everything to the southwest, including Pakistan and Iran, Mesopotamia, Saudi Arabia, even North Africa and southern Europe. The dry belt runs more than halfway across the Eurasia-African landmass -- a burnt rock landscape, home to the fiery religions that then spread out and torched the rest of the world. Coincidence? religion Kim Stanley Robinson
e1646e5 Know that God loves you very, very much. And remind others that they are loved too. If they don't want to hear that God loves them, then tell them you love them. It will be just as important! Beliefs vary, but love always works! love religion spirituality Sean Patrick Brennan
28d712b "El papa Benedicto XVI habia dicho que la pederastia se consideraba normal hasta fecha tan reciente como los anos setenta. [...] - Benedicto dijo: "Nada es bueno o malo en si mismo". Dijo "nada", Clark -repitio Juan Diego a su exalumno-. La pederastia no es "nada"; seguramente la pederastia si es "mala en si misma", Clark." papa pederastia pederasty pope-benedict-xvi religion John Irving
0796340 She'd never been religious. She hadn't allowed grief to send her crawling to the church. religion Michael Cunningham
0e384eb A little eccentricity is a help to a general. It helps with the newspapers. The women love it too. Southern women like their men religious and a little mad. That's why the fall in love with preachers. humor love religion southern-women Michael Shaara
039c153 I spose it's wrong to pray that someone dies... But I've thought about all the prayers. If that's what I was doing them years...Asking something, someone, anything, for a big black anvil to fall from the sky like in the cartoons. Kerang! On Wankbag's head. Because nothing else was gunna save [me]... death irony religion salvation Tim Winton
e7388df I find it curious that she hasn't been excommunicated. Are her small acts of rebellion a convenient outlet for Peters, a type of performance that satisfies the colonists' need to assert themselves, and that allows Peters to act with impunity on a larger scale? religion Miriam Toews
2d73660 I wish that I could thoroughly believe in some creed. I wish that I was ignorant enough to know one truth and discard all others. religion Kate Horsley
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