All Quotes By Tag: Religion

“I think we place the wrong emphasis upon examples, that we’re treading on very weak ground when we set ourselves up as examples for others to become religious. If people are going to look at me for religious guidance, then I think they’re looking in the wrong place.”

“Assim é, mas a vantagem da igreja é que, embora às vezes o não pareça, ao gerir o que está no alto, governa o que está em baixo.”

“[P]eople need to use their intelligence to evaluate what they find to be true and untrue in the Bible. This is how we need to live life generally. Everything we hear and see we need to evaluate—whether the inspiring writings of the Bible or the inspiring writings of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, or George Eliot, of Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, or the Dalai Lama.”

“There is a sort of mental treasonThat smothers dreams outside of reason”

“If we want to set out on the aruous search for the truth, we must all summon up the courage to leave the lines along which we have thought until now and as the first step begin to doubt everything that we previously accepted as correct and true. Can we still afford to close our eyes and stop up our ears because new ideas are supposed to be heretical and absurd?”

“I see no reason why church services have to be standard. I’ve discussed this with the man who used to be a pastor here at the Methodist Church in Sebastopol. I told him I saw no reason why, on a certain Sunday morning, if a minister has felt during the week the burden of a topic upon his heart and he knows that it is going to take more than the standard twenty minutes to discuss this thing, why he can’t rise at the beginning of the service and say ‘I have something of special importance this morning so let’s sing just one song, and if you’ll forgive me, I think I’m going to need about an hour to explain it to you.’ I think the congregation would appreciate his candor and give him their attention. If, on the other hand, he does not feel that a definite message has been given him, why not admit it from the pulpit and say, ‘This morning, I’m not going to try to make up something to fill the time. We’ll sing a few extra hymns and go home!’ Why do the services have to begin and end at the same time, and why does everything have to be so rigid?”

“Oh no, praying is great, without it the thumbscrews and the Iron Maiden probably never would have been invented.”

“I can’t be a priest because although my heart is as loud as hers I can pretend no answering riot. I have shouted to God and the Virgin, but they have not shouted back and I’m not interested in the still small voice. Surely a god can meet passion with passion? She says he can. Then he should.”

“Penegakan sistem Islam dan pemberlakuan syariat Islam tidak dapat dilakukan dengan cara merebut kekuasaan yang datang dari lapisan atas. Akan tetapi, melalui perubahan masyarakat secara keseluruhan—atau pemahaman beberapa kelompok masyarakat dalam jumlah yang mencukupi untuk mengarahkan seluruh masyarakat—pada pemikirannya, nilai-nilainya, akhlaknya, dan komitmennya dengan Islam. Sehingga tumbuh kesadaran dalam jiwa mereka, bahwa menegakkan sistem dan syariat Islam itu merupakan sebuah kewajiban yang harus dilaksanakan.”

“El diablo no es el príncipe de la materia, el diablo es la arrogancia del espíritu, la fe sin sonrisa, la verdad jamás tocada por la duda.”

“if you truly want to know why I’m helping you, you won’t get any easy answers. It’s not because I believe in the goodness of humankind. It’s not because I believe God and the rest of the monsters are evil. I only wish to have the capacity to change. To know that we have the ability to take a different direction than the one presented to us. That is more important than good and evil. Than life or death.”

“Christ came to take away our sins, not our minds.”

“the only unfailing guide I’ve ever found through the innumerable blind alleys of my life as a writer, man, husband, father, citizen, steward, or believer, is the love burning in my heart. for me, prayer is about one thing: making contact with that love. though it burns in there like a candle flame, hot, bright, beautiful, love’s flame is so fragile… keeping one’s love burning, and living in accord with that burning: this, to me, is prayer.”

“Or maybe that’s what it’s all about: this religion’s substance is its lack of substance. In McLuhanesque terms, the medium is the message. Some people might find that cool.”“McLuhanesque?”“Hey, look, even I read a book now and then,” Ayumi protested. “McLuhan was ahead of his time. He was so popular for a while that people tend not to take him seriously, but what he had to say was right.”“In other words, the package itself is the contents. Is that it?”“Exactly. The characteristics of the package determine the nature of the contents, not the other way around.”

“Accumulating orthodoxy makes it harder year-by-year to be a Christian than it was in Jesus’ day.”