#eli

For more than 150 years free men in our countries have had the opportunities to educate themselves, choose their own religions, select their own occupations, accumulate capital and invent better ways of doing things. ↗

— Charles E. Wilson

#better #better ways #capital #choose #countries

I thought perhaps it should be recognized that religious people, including fundamentalists, are quite intelligent, many of them are highly educated, and they should be treated with complete respect. ↗

— E. O. Wilson

#educated #fundamentalists #highly #i #including

I believe that the high rates of property crime (and some of the increase in violent crime) are part of the price you pay for freedom. ↗

— James Q. Wilson

#crime #freedom #high #i #i believe

Among the many reasons assignable for the sad decay of true Christianity, perhaps the neglecting to assemble ourselves together, in religious societies, may not be one of the least. ↗

— George Whitefield

#assemble #christianity #decay #least #many

I do not believe on giving amnesty. ↗

— Doug Hoffman

#believe #giving #i #i do

This discourse, and the present frame of my mind, lead me rather to speak to those, who by feeling Satan's fiery darts, know assuredly that there is a devil. ↗

— George Whitefield

#darts #devil #discourse #feeling #fiery

Energy, energy? Energy is, is, it's nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as religion. ↗

— Tony Wilson

#energy #lot #masquerading #more #new

I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There's no moral value in the vicarious gesture anyway. As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a another man's debt, or even to take his place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you did not commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility. So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#forgiveness #immorality #redemption #religion #responsibility

There is no way, believe me, despite my name being Winfield, and loving the game dearly. It wasn't in the cards. I didn't know what it was going to take to get here. ↗

— Dave Winfield

#believe #cards #dearly #despite #game

I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear. ↗

— Oprah Winfrey

#choose #choose love #event #every #fear