#eli

Those who feel guilty contemplating "betraying" the tradition they love by acknowledging their disapproval of elements within it should reflect on the fact that the very tradition to which they are so loyal—the "eternal" tradition introduced to them in their youth—is in fact the evolved product of many adjustments firmly but delicately made by earlier lovers of the same tradition. ↗

— Daniel C. Dennett

#tradition #love

Human beings, in point of fact, are lonely by nature, and one should feel sorry for them and love them and mourn with them. It is certain that people would understand one another better and love one another more if they would admit to one another how lonely they were, how sad they were in their tormented, anxious longings and feeble hopes. ↗

— Halldór Laxness

#love

You heard him say it? 'Pain's the only evil I know about.' You heard that?" The monk nodded solemnly. "And that society is the only thing that determines whether an act is wrong or not? That too?" "Yes." "Dearest God, how did those two heresies get back into the world after all this time? Hell has limited imaginations down there. 'The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. ↗

— Walter M. Miller Jr.

#pain #relativism #religion #imagination

He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity to admire a pelican. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#pelican #charity

it is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant. ↗

— Max Weber

#morality-without-religion #oppression #politics #tyranny #religion

Dwarfs were not a naturally religious species, but in a world where pit props could crack without warning and pockets of fire damp could suddenly explode they'd seen the need for gods as the sort of supernatural equivalent of a hard hat. Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, "Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!" or "Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch! ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#funny #humour #religion #funny

If my name were C. Ross, I’d definitely be religious. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#funny #religion #funny

Good people are good people; religion has nothing to do with it. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#love #religion #love

She'd been in love with the man, and love is a scary thing. If not reciprocated, it can turn a person into a monster. ↗

— Michele Young-Stone

#loneliness #longing #loveless #love

The glory of science is to imagine more than we can prove. ↗