#belief

Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual bankruptcy. ↗

— Dan Barker

#faith #faith

A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system. ↗

— Jane Smiley

#child #controversial #every #germ #ideas

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#carl-sagan #cosmos #age

Se acredito num velhote que vive nas nuvens, com uma barba branca e que nos julga com um código moral numerado de um a dez? Deus do céu, não, Elly, não acredito! Já teria sido expulso desta vida há muitos anos devido à minha história atribulada. Se acredito num mistério; no inexplicável fenómeno que é a própria vida? Na entidade grandiosa que ilumina as incongruências das nossas vidas, que nos dá coisas pelas quais nos devemos esforçar e também a humildade para nos recompormos e recomeçarmos tudo de novo? Então sim, nisso acredito. É a fonte da arte, da beleza, do amor e professa a derradeira bondade para com os seres humanos. Para mim, isso é Deus. Para mim, isso é vida. É nisso que acredito. ↗

— Sarah Winman

#god #art

I like the confusion you get between science and religion … that’s where belief lies and art as well. ↗

— Damien Hirst

#belief #religion #science #art

The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I'm not going to let myself pull me down anymore. ↗

— C. JoyBell C.

#believe-in-yourself #inspiration #inspirational #inspirational-attitude #inspirational-life

If a Manx cat tells you that it is trying to preserve its long, beautiful tail, you don't have to believe it - especially if you have eyes. ↗

— Idries Shah

#have-a-care #knowledge #proof #beauty

He's not a bad guy, John. It's human nature. He wanted it to be some mistake I made that he wouldn't have made, some flaw in me that he didn't share, so he could believe it wouldn't have happened to him. But it wasn't my fault. It was either blind, dumb, stupid luck from start to finish, in which case, we are all in the wrong business gentleman, or it was a God I cannot worship. ↗

— Mary Doria Russell

#religion #business

Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason. ↗

— Andrew Solomon

#bravery #courage #depression #eating #exercise

There are powers far beyond us, plans far beyond what we could have ever thought of, visions far more vast than what we can ever see on our own with our own eyes, there are horizons long gone beyond our own horizons. This is courage- to throw away what is our own that is limited and to thrust ourselves into the hands of these higher powers- God and Destiny.To do this is to abide in the realm of the eternal, to walk in the path of the everlasting to follow in the footprints of God and demi-gods. The hardest part for man is the letting go. For some reason, he thinks himself big enough to know and to see what's good for him. But in the letting go........is found freedom. In the letting go........ is found the flight! ↗

— C. JoyBell C.

#destiny #flying #flying-spirit #footprints #god