#con

For a century, environmentalism has divided itself into warring camps: conservationists versus preservationists.... The struggle pits those who would meddle with nature against those who would leave it be.... The only sensible way forward lies in a melding of the two philosophies. If nature has grown artificial, then restoring wilderness requires human intervention. We must manage nature in order to leave it alone. ↗

— David Baron

#nature #nature

This is a spendthrift economy; though nothing is lost, all is spent. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#profligacy #nature

All their teeth are yellow. No tooth-brush ever entered that convent. Brushing one's teeth is at the top of a ladder at whose bottom is the loss of one's soul. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#extremism #religion #teeth #religion

Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won, because people have ceased to consider religion so important as it was once thought to be. But in politics and economics, which have taken the place formerly occupied by religion, there is a growing tendency to persecution, which is not by any means confined to one party. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#persecution #politics #power #religion

I will raise up prophets to make conflicting pronouncements that inevitably will be garbled in transcription, resulting in mutually exclusive definitions of orthodoxy from which the open-minded will flee in dismay. ↗

— Sheri S. Tepper

#doctrine #narrow-mindedness #orthodoxy #prophecies #religion

My religious beliefs also defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism and pandeism. ↗

— Alfred Tennyson

#deism #pandeism #pantheism #religion #spirituality

As for logic and internal consistency, these mundane rules do not apply to sacred writings and never have... ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#jubal #religion #rules #religion

Okay, that's intensely interesting," Duvall said. "So you're a priest of the Forshan religion? Which schism?" "The leftward schism, and no, not a priest." "Couldn't handle the celibacy?" "Leftward priests aren't required to be celibate," Dahl said, "but considering I was the only human at the seminary, I had celibacy thrust upon me, if you will." "Some people wouldn't let that stop them," Duvall said. "You haven't seen a Forshan seminary student up close," Dahl said. "Also, I don't swing xeno. ↗

— John Scalzi

#religion

humanity suffers terribly from the demons it has created over lengths of time. we learn from nothing that we do. we create religions, heritage, race, traditions, then they all in turn become our stumbling blocks from becoming one. we suffer from the creations of our own inability to interpret history. the only thing we have succeded on is seperation.we are not that different from one another as we think we are. but we are too corrupted to break our deconstruction. ↗

— Jeffrey Fischer

#nihilism #society #religion

Whenever the Christian idea of meditation is taken seriously, there are those who assume it is synonymous with the concept of meditation centered in Eastern religions. In reality, the two ideas stand worlds apart. Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind. The two ideas are quite different. ↗

— Richard J. Foster

#christianity #contemplation #eastern-religion #meditation #religion