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My reading of American religious history is that religion always functions best from the margins of society and not in the councils of power. Once you identify the faith with a particular candidate or party or with the quest for political influence, ultimately it is the faith that suffers. Compromise may work in politics. It's less appropriate to the realm of faith and belief. ↗
Faith is either something that informs one at all times or it isn’t anything at all, really. When the Chinese government tells its citizens that they can worship in a certain building on a certain day, but once they leave that building they must bow to the secular orthodoxy of the state, you have a cynical lie at work. They’ve substituted a toothless “freedom of worship” for “freedom of religion”. ↗
He asked me if I ever prayed-- and I lied. Then he asked me if I ever got an answer, or a sign that my prayer was heard-- and I told him the truth. "Yeah... me neither." His hands sounded like leather as he slowly rubbed some warmth into his knotted knuckles. "So what happens to all of those lost prayers?" I didn't know if I should tell him the truth of what I really believed... or not. I put my hand on his slumping shoulder, smiled and told him the truth of what I believe, "Don't worry... ↗
Yo no sé nada de Dios (...), pero sí sé algo de la tradición. Tú y yo somos gente literal. Sea cual sea la interpretación más obvia, ésa es nuestra verdad. Cuando las iglesias antiguas proclamaron sus leyes, sentaron un precedente. Ellos creen que la tierra consagrada rechaza nuestras almas y, puesto que su convicción es tan fuerte, nuestros cuerpos sienten dolor. ↗
My statement to Harris that his book contains much to admire is specious hyperbole. In The End of Faith, Harris rails against religious fundamentalism, which seems obvious, as well as against religious moderates, which seems intolerant. ↗
A lifetime spent in the study of the history of societies since the dawn of mankind presumably inclined him to skepticism and misgivings in regard to any great scheme, religious or political, that set out to create universal happiness in one fell swoop; what it was more likely to create, in his opinion, was universal misery; and his faith in heaven-sent saviors was hardly greater. ↗
Religion became an end, rather than a means, a substitute for God. Until alcoholism intervened and forced the issue: God, or religion? – p. 125 ↗
