#ali

The miracles of healing, important as they were, were not an end in themselves. They did not constitute the highest good of the messianic salvation. This fact is illustrated by the arrangement of the phrases in Matthew 11:4-5. Greater than deliverance of the blind and the lame, the lepers and the deaf, even than raising of the dead, was the preaching of the good news to the poor. This “gospel” was the very presence of Jesus himself, and the joy and fellowship that he brought to the poor. ↗

— George Eldon Ladd

#christian #healing #jesus #kingdom-of-god #messianic-task

Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridians; I'll die a pagan. ↗

— Herman Melville

#religion #religion

Have a religion but don't let religion have you! Befriend God because you wanted to, not because they have said it to you. ↗

— Janina Lea Dela Peña

#religion-meaning #religion-philosophy #religion

[Der Zoll] ist ein Gesellschaftsspiel und eine Religion, die Religion der Vaterländer. ↗

— Kurt Tucholsky

#religion

You may substitute knowledge for superstition without satisfying the needs that drive people into superstition's arms. ↗

— Susan Neiman

#religion #superstition #religion

If religion is about the sacred as opposed to the profane, the spirit as opposed to matter, the Creator as opposed to the created, Confucianism plainly does not qualify. But perhaps what we are to learn from this tradition is not that Confucianism is not a religion but that not all religious people parse the sacred and the secular the way Christians do. ↗

— Stephen R. Prothero

#confucianism #religion #spirituality #religion

And if you would know God, be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees. ↗

— Kahlil Gibran

#religion #spirituality #nature

As the sailor locates his position on the sea by "shooting" the sun, so we may get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin with God. ↗

— A.W. Tozer

#christianity #morality #religion #religion

Siempre he creído que una persona es inteligente. Son las multitudes las que son estúpidas. Y pocas cosas confirman esto mejor que la guerra, la religion organizada, la burocracia y la preparatoria, donde la mayoria reina sin piedad. Cuando recordé mis primeros dias ahí, todo lo que ví fue una inseguridade y una duda tan agobiantes que un simple grano era capaz de sacar mi vida de balance. Sólo hasta mis últimos dias tuve confianza y respeto por mi mísmo, incluso un poco de individualid. ↗

— Marilyn Manson

#confianza #estúpidas #guerra #individualid #inteligente

Lying mouth to mouth, kiss to kiss in the pillow dark, loin to loin in unbelievable surrendering sweetness so distant from all our mental fearful abstractions it makes you wonder why men have termed God antisexual somehow (p. 148) ↗

— Jack Kerouac

#prude #religion #sexuality #men