#eli

The agony of martyrdom is almost too much to bear. In the early hours, when the loss is fresh, there is no comfort in knowing Glory will live on. We speak of the martyrs in History but we cannot know the actual pain they suffered in their final living hours. They enter the realm of the mythic, but we must never forget these were men like ourselves. When their flesh is torn, they cry out. They suffer as you or I would suffer, although more bravely. Remember Christ. Although I am now an enemy to Joseph's legacy, I shudder when recalling his pain. ↗

— David Ebershoff

#religion #men

Wisdom isn't bound by wealth brackets, status or caste, religion or pedigree. She feeds all who come to her hungry. ↗

— D.M. Anthony

#religion

When I think of the causes for which people more commonly give up their lives-nationalism, religion, ethnicity-it seems to me that a thirty-five pound bag of rocks and the lost world it represents, is not such a bad thing to die for. ↗

— Anne Fadiman

#polar-exploration #religion

Manz, formerly one of Zwingli's closest allies, held that there was no biblical warrant for infant baptism. Refusing to recant his views, he was tied up and drowned in the River Limmat. ↗

— Alister E. McGrath

#religion #religion

It is evident as a matter of logic that, since they (world religions) disagree, not more than one of them can be true. ↗

— Betrand Russell

#religion #religion

Who but the sports-mad [Norman] Mailer would liken the battle between God and the Devil to a game of American football? The contest, for sure, has with [sic] own laws (so that after God and the Devil 'tackle a guy, they don't kick him in the head'), but each side is not above cheating—with God breaking the rules occasionally by throwing in 'a miracle'. Strangely, Mailer doesn’t mention Jesus in this agonising analogy, but then the notion of the 'super-sub' may be an image too far even for him. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#book-review #devil #god #jesus #miracles

This is something you might want to sit down for, our country is horrible, our time is wasted, Jesus was the devil, and republicans are democrats.. ↗

— Fluffy C

#politics #religion #weird #religion

If we as a culture had any good aesthetic sense about us, we'd turn back to polytheism immediately. ↗

— Barry Wolfenden

#religion

When the highest value in a community is loyalty to the greater cause, meaning the continuity of the status quo, all means to this end are imbued with religious significance, and are thereby justified. ↗

— Pearl Abraham

#justification #religion #status-quo #religion

People say Jesus Christ is a god, and they pray to him. Likewise, the Navajos have a god. He is an everlasting god who never dies, and we pray to him for everything. We were created from white shell in a sacred, holy way. Part of the white shell was taken and put in our bodies, but no one can see it. White Shell is a god. We pray to her "to give us the invisible white shell shoes, white shell socks, clothing, feathers," and so on. This god is female and is out there, but we cannot see her. ↗

— John Holiday

#white-shell #religion