#ex

The Auden/Kallman relationship had this to be said for it: It affirmed that it's better to be blatant than latent. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#coming-out #homosexuality #relationships #the-closet #wh-auden

If we are unable to tolerate ourselves when we are alone, how can we expect anyone else to be enriched by our company? Before we can have a solid relationship with another, we must have a relationship with ourselves. We are challenged to learn to listen to ourselves. We have to be able to stand alone before we can truly stand beside another. ↗

— Gerald Corey

#relationship

Nothing optional—from homosexuality to adultery—is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishments) have a repressed desire to participate. As Shakespeare put it in King Lear, the policeman who lashes the whore has a hot need to use her for the very offense for which he plies the lash. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#closeted #homosexuality #hypocrisy #prohibition #religion

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#extremism #opinion #opinions #passion #rationalism

Everyone must come out of his Exile in his own way. ↗

— Martin Buber

#man #religion #religion

Indeed, it's futile to try and use Holy Scripture to support any political position. I deeply distrust anyone who does. Just look at what an Islamic Republic is like. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#islamic-holy-books #islamic-republic #politics #religion #religious-text

Define the word exist, and you'll know whether God exists. ↗

— Bill Gaede

#existence #gaede #god #physics #religion

The Search for reason ends at the known; on the immense expanse beyond it only the sense of the ineffable can glide. It alone knows the route to that which is remote from experience and understanding. Neither of them is amphibious: reason cannot go beyond the shore, and the sense of the ineffable is out of place where we measure, where we weigh. We do not leave the shore of the known in search of adventure or suspense or because of the failure of reason to answer our questions. We sail because our mind is like a fantastic seashell, and when applying our ear to its lips we hear a perpetual murmur from the waves beyond the shore. Citizens of two realms, we all must sustain a dual allegiance: we sense the ineffable in one realm, we name and exploit reality in another. Between the two we set up a system of references, but we can never fill the gap. They are as far and as close to each other as time and calendar, as violin and melody, as life and what lies beyond the last breath. ↗

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

#knowledge #life #reason #experience

Strange to hear atheists say 'god' when having great sex. ↗

— Toba Beta

#religion #sex #religion

the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. ↗

— Anonymous

#religion #sex #spiritual #religion