#after

Since both the departed saints and we ourselves are in Christ, we share with them in the 'communion of saints.' They are still our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we celebrate the Eucharist they are there with us, along with the angels and archangels. Why then should we not pray for and with them? The reason the Reformers and their successors did their best to outlaw praying for the dead was because that had been so bound up with the notion of purgatory and the need to get people out of it as soon as possible. Once we rule out purgatory, I see no reason why we should not pray for and with the dead and every reason why we should - not that they will get out of purgatory but that they will be refreshed and filled with God's joy and peace. Love passes into prayer; we still love them; why not hold them, in that love, before God? ↗

— N.T. Wright

#communion-of-saints #paradise #prayer #praying-for-the-dead #purgatory

It turns out that what money buys has rapidly diminishing emotional returns ... As long as we're not destitute, happiness depends less on getting what we want than appreciating what we already have. ↗

— Robert B. Reich

#happiness #money

- "Women should all move to Amazonia, or at least vacation there four times a year." - "Amazonia?" - "It's the girl world in my head, where I go when I'm annoyed with Carter, or just men in general. There are five shoe stores per capita, nothing has any calories, and all the books and movies end happy ever after." - "I like Amazonia. When do we leave? ↗

— Nora Roberts

#men

Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?" A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. ↗

— J.R.R. Tolkien

#music

There is an hour of the afternoon when the plain is on the verge of saying something. It never says, or perhaps it says it infinitely, or perhaps we do not understand it, or we understand it and it is untranslatable as music. ↗

— Jorge Luis Borges

#music #plains #understand #untranslatable #music

The nature of heaven is to provide a place there for all who lead good lives, no matter what their religion may be. ↗

— Emanuel Swedenborg

#heaven #inclusion #nature #religion #swedenborg

What after all, is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean. ↗

— Christopher Fry

#clean #halo #keep #more #only

When I finally applied logic to Religion that was when I quit paying after life insurance and quit going ↗

— Stanley Victor Paskavich

#atheism #atheist #religion #tithing #religion

Dragons and Afterlife .. I don't see any difference between both of them, we didn't see neither the dragons nor afterlife, we just heard about them and both of them are superstitions with no scientific or logical evidence .. But the only reason you believe in afterlife unlike dragons is that you've been taught to believe in it from your birthday. now if they taught you to believe in dragons and if it were mentioned in your Bible or your holy book you would have believed in it .. herein lies the danger of religions, you can believe something exists without any evidence .. and that's why you should only follow science and let go of your religious teachings ↗

— Sherif Gaber

#atheism #atheists #belief #bible #difference

Throughout Mesoamerica it was a common belief that a dog carried the soul of a newly deceased person across a body of water. According to the Aztecs, the first level of the Underworld was a place called Apanoayan (where one crosses the river) or Itzcuintlan (the Place of Dogs). ↗

— Elizabeth Eiler

#dogs #religion-spirituality #religion