#cult

Fundamentalism's strident denunciation of its opponents is a sign of its weakness, its dogmatic authoritarianism is a pathological mutation of faith. ↗

— Alan Aldridge

#religion #theology #faith

In the pragmatist, streetwise climate of advanced postmodern capitalism, with its scepticism of big pictures and grand narratives, its hard-nosed disenchantment with the metaphysical, 'life' is one among a whole series of discredited totalities. We are invited to think small rather than big – ironically, at just the point when some of those out to destroy Western civilization are doing exactly the opposite. In the conflict between Western capitalism and radical Islam, a paucity of belief squares up to an excess of it. The West finds itself faced with a full-blooded metaphysical onslaught at just the historical point that it has, so to speak, philosophically disarmed. As far as belief goes, postmodernism prefers to travel light: it has beliefs, to be sure, but it does not have faith. ↗

— Terry Eagleton

#belief #capitalism #faith #grand-narratives #islam

The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#family #food #meal #family

These are the few ways we can practice humility: To speak as little as possible of one's self. To mind one's own business. Not to want to manage other people's affairs. To avoid curiosity. To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully. To pass over the mistakes of others. To accept insults and injuries. To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked. To be kind and gentle even under provocation. Never to stand on one's dignity. To choose always the hardest. ↗

— Mother Teresa

#bossy #cheerful #curiosity #difficulty #dignity

There wasn't a shed of doubt in her mind that he'd fulfill her every sexual fantasy and them some. But was a brief, hot affair worth losing his friendship? ↗

— Francis Ray

#fiction #multicultural #romance #friendship

In a kind of a way there's a bit of that happening now so we have to be careful to preserve our culture. ↗

— Yahoo Serious

#bit #careful #culture #happening #kind

People want guidance, not rhetoric. They need to know what the plan of action is, and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and authority to act on it. ↗

— Howard Schultz

#leadership #leadership

For better of for worse the church in the West bought modernity's claims. We were baptized in its story (even though it said it did not have one) and accepted its categories and definitions. But somewhere along the way we also began to believe that the ways in which we accessed knowledge about God or Jesus or the Spirit or Christianity were those things themselves. ↗

— Tim Keel

#church #culture #modernity #leadership

Start with the difficult and when it gets easy, everything else is easier. ↗

— Frank Delaney

#life #perseverance #the-matchmaker-of-kenmare #life

Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering. ↗

— Rachel Naomi Remen

#culture #stories #wisdom #life