All Quotes By Tag: Religion

“Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I’m sure we’ll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn’t withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn’t seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That’s an idea we’re so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it’s kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is ‘Here is an idea or a notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not. Why not? – because you’re not!”

“I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly.”

“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.”

“Unless there is a Good Friday in your life, there can be no Easter Sunday.”

“I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, wished hard, but I didn’t pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organised religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn’t a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I’d been baptised.”

“Mr. Langdon, I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believed in God. There is a difference. Holy scripture is stories…legends and history of man’s quest to understand his own need for meaning. I am not asking you to pass judgment on literature. I am asking if you believe in God. When you lie out under the stars, do you sense the divine? Do you feel in your gut that you are staring up at the work of God’s hands?”

“What looks like politics, and imagines itself to be political, will one day unmask itself as a religious movement.”

“هل تعلمين أن الناس لا يعرفون عنا سوى نهاياتنا ؟عندما نموت ,نصبح رمزًا للجهاد والمقاومة. والرمز لا حياة شخصية لديه ولا احتياجات, لديه هدف فقط , من أجله يعيش ومن أجله يموت, بهذا المعنى نكون “مخلوقات ظل” تهفوا إلى “النور” نكون قد عبرنا إلى منطقة النور حين نستشهد. كينونتنا منذ زمن هي كينونة هذا “الرمز” كل نفس يتردد في صدورنا هو في سبيل الله. فكيف نعود إلى حياة البشر الفانين؟ نحيا لنأكل ونقرأ ونتفسح وننام .. لنعيد الكرة في اليوم التالي “التكرار” تلك الكلمة المقيتة. أليس التكرار هو طابع جهنم؟ جسد يحترق ثم يُكسَى لحمًا ليحترق مرة أخرى كأن شيئًا لم يكن؟”

“What I have a problem with is not so much religion or god, but faith. When you say you believe something in your heart and therefore you can act on it, you have completely justified the 9/11 bombers. You have justified Charlie Manson. If it’s true for you, why isn’t it true for them? Why are you different? If you say “I believe there’s an all-powerful force of love in the universe that connects us all, and I have no evidence of that but I believe it in my heart,” then it’s perfectly okay to believe in your heart that Sharon Tate deserves to die. It’s perfectly okay to believe in your heart that you need to fly planes into buildings for Allah.”

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

“We can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all receivedwisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of love and compassion….This, then, is my true religion, my simple faith. In this sense, there is no needfor temple or church, for mosque or synagogue, no need for complicatedphilosophy, doctrine or dogma. Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple.The doctrine is compassion. Love for others and respect for their rights anddignity, no matter who or what they are: ultimately these are all we need.So long as we practice these in our daily lives, then no matter if we arelearned or unlearned, whether we believe in Buddha or God, or follow someother religion or none at all, as long as we have compassion for others andconduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there isno doubt we will be happy.”

“If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.”

“On the Disc, the Gods aren’t so much worshipped, as they are blamed.”

“Grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God.”

“When you grow up as a girl, it is like there are faint chalk lines traced approximately three inches around your entire body at all times, drawn by society and often religion and family and particularly other women, who somehow feel invested in how you behave, as if your actions reflect directly on all womanhood.”