#ali

People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#evil #fanaticism #fundamentalism #religion #religion

The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. . . Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves. ↗

— Pema Chödrön

#buddhism #religion #spirituality #religion

Are not all religions strange to those who stand outside of them? ↗

— Christopher Paolini

#religion

Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships. ↗

— Robert M. Pirsig

#spirituality #religion

When asked why I don't believe in God I reply, quite simply, "vaginas". ↗

— Robert Clark

#humour #religion #women #religion

We are born from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awakening ↗

— Zhuangzi

#existentialism #life #tao #taoism #death

Communing with God is communing with our own hearts, our own best selves, not with something foreign and accidental. Saints and devotees have gone into the wilderness to find God; of course they took God with them, and the silence and detachment enabled them to hear the still, small voice of their own souls, as one hears the ticking of his own watch in the stillness of the night. ↗

— John Burroughs

#god #nature #religion #solitude #spirituality

If you know that I am an unbeliever, then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief. ↗

— Pier Paolo Pasolini

#religion #secularity #spirituality #religion

the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding ↗

— Anonymous

#religion #spirituality #wisdom #religion

My dear sister, you can’t escape God, and you can’t escape your skeletons in the closet. They will always be there until you take them out from behind those dusty old moth-eaten coats. Your exterior facade of ‘everything is alright’ only works for a little while, and then the cracks begin to show. You can only hide behind yourself for so long. You can’t keep running! ↗

— Corallie Buchanan

#religion #running-away #religion