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They who search after the Philosopher's Stone [are] by their own rules obliged to a strict and religious life. ↗
For Dawkins, atheism is a necessary consequence of evolution. He has argued that the religious impulse is simply an evolutionary mistake, a ‘misfiring of something useful’, it is a kind if virus, parasitic on cognitive systems naturally selected because they had enabled a species to survive. Dawkins is an extreme exponent of the scientific naturalism, originally formulated by d’Holbach, that has now become a major worldview among intellectuals. More moderate versions of this “scientism” have been articulated by Carl Sagan, Steven Weinberg, and Daniel Dennett, who have all claimed that one has to choose between science and faith. For Dennett, theology has been rendered superfluous, because biology can provide a better explanation of why people are religious. But for Dawkins, like the other “new atheists” – Sam Harris, the young American philosopher and student of neuroscience, and Christopher Hitchens, critic and journalist – religion is the cause of the problems of our world; it is the source of absolute evil and “poisons everything.” They see themselves in the vanguard of a scientific/rational movement that will eventually expunge the idea of God from human consciousness. But other atheists and scientists are wary of this approach. The American zoologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) followed Monod in his discussion of the implications of evolution. Everything in the natural world could indeed be explained by natural selection, but Gould insisted that science was not competent to decide whether God did or did not exist, because it could only work with natural explanations. Gould had no religious axe to grind; he described himself as an atheistically inclined agnostic, but pointed out that Darwin himself had denied he was an atheist and that other eminent Darwinians - Asa Gray, Charles D. Walcott, G. G. Simpson, and Theodosius Dobzhansky - had been either practicing Christians or agnostics. Atheism did not, therefore, seem to be a necessary consequence of accepting evolutionary theory, and Darwinians who held forth dogmatically on the subject were stepping beyond the limitations that were proper to science. ↗
The speech fascinated him. His ear caught the rhythm of it and he noted their idioms and worked some of them into his patter. He had found the reason behind the peculiar, drawling language of the old carny hands—it was a composite of all the sprawling regions of the country. A language which sounded Southern to Southerners, Western to Westerners. It was the talk of the soil and its drawl covered the agility of the brains that poured it out. It was a soothing, illiterate, earthy language. ↗
Jesus did not come to start a religion. He came to blow religion off the map. Jesus did not come to tinker with our ideas about God. He came to show us who God really is. Jesus did not come to build cathedrals or pulpits. He came to start a revolution. Jesus came to initiate a way of life, a new way to live, that knocks the props from beneath everything else we have ever known. ↗
¡Creedlo, ciudadanos, aquel a quien la espada material de las leyes no detiene tampoco se detendrá por el temor moral de los suplicios del infierno, de los que se burla desde su infancia!. En una palabra, vuestro teísmo ha hecho cometer muchas fechorías, pero jamás ha evitado una sola. Si es cierto que las pasiones ciegan, que su efecto es tender ante nuestros ojos una nube que nos oculte los peligros de que están rodeadas, ¿cómo podemos suponer que los que están lejos de nosotros, como lo están los castigos anunciados por vuestro dios, puedan llegar a disipar esa nube que no disuelve siquiera la espada de las leyes, siempre suspendida sobre las pasiones? ↗
تعتمد هذه الدراسة مجمل الخطاب الديني موضوعاً لها. وذلك دون الأخذ في الاعتبار تلك التفرقة - المستقرة إعلامياً- بين (المعندل) و(المتطرف) في هذا الخطاب، والحقيقة أن الفارق بين هذين النمطين من الخطاب فارق في الدرجة لا في النوع، والدليل على ذلك أن الباحث لا يجد تغايراً أو اختلافاً، من حيث المنطلقات الفكرية أو الآليات بينهما. ويتجلى التطابق في اعتماد نمطي الخطاب على عناصر أساسية ثابتة في بنية الخطاب الديني بشكل عام، عناصر أساسية غير قابلة للنقاش أو الحوار أو المساومة. في القلب من هذه العناصر عنصران ستتعرض لهما هذه الدراسة بالمناقشة وهما "النص" و"الحاكمية". وكما يتطابق نمطا الخطاب من حيث المنطلقات الفكرية، يتطابقان كذلك من حيث الآليات التي يعتمدان عليها في طرح المفاهيم، وفي إقناع الآخرين واكتساب الأنصار والأعوان. وتتعدد آليات الخطاب وتتنوع بتعدد وسائل طرح هذا الخطاب وأدواته، ومع ذلك فهناك جامع مشترك يمكن رصده وتحليله خاصة إذا استبعدنا من مجال تحليلنا آليات الأداء الشفاهي، وفصرنا تحليلنا على الآليات الذهنية والعقلية التي توجد في كل -أو معظم- وسائل هذا الخطاب وأداوته. وتتوقف هذه الدراسة عند ما تعتبره أهم آليات هذا الخطاب، وهي تلك الآليات الكاشفة عن المستوى الإيديواوجي لهذا الخطاب، وهو المستوى الذي يجمع بين الاعتدال والتطرف من جهة، وبين الفقهاء والوعاظ من جهة أخرى، هذه الآليات يمكن إجمالها فيما يلي: 1- التوحيد بين الفكر والدين وإلغاء المسافة بين الذات والموضوع. 2- تفسير الظواهر بردها جميعاً إلى مبدأ أو علة أولى، تستوي في ذلك الظواهر الاجتماعية أو الطبيعية. 3- الاعتماد على سلطة "السلف" أو "التراث" وذلك بعد تأويل النصوص التراثية -وهي نصوص ثانوية- إلى نصوص أولية تتمتع بقدر هائل من القداسة لا تقل -في كثير من الأحوال- عن النصوص الأصلية. 4- اليقين الذهني والحسم الفكري "القطعي" ورفض أي خلاف فكري -من ثم- إلا إذا كان في الفروع والتفاصيل دون الأسس والأصول. 5- إهدار البعد التاريخي وتجاهله، ويتجلى هذا في البكاء على الماضي الجميل، يستوي في ذلك العصر الذهبي للخلافة الرشيدة وعصر الخلافة التركية العثمانية. ↗
Christianity grasped perfectly that there is an element in the apparent contingency of love that can’t be reduced to that contingency. But it immediately raised it to the level of transcendence, and that is the root of the problem. This universal element I too recognize in love as immanent. But Christianity has somehow managed to elevate it and refocus it onto a transcendent power. It’s an ideal that was already partly present in Plato, through the idea of the Good. It is a brilliant first manipulation of the power of love and one we must now bring back to earth. I mean we must demonstrate that love really does have universal power, but that it is simply the opportunity we are given to enjoy a positive, creative, affirmative experience of difference. The Other, no doubt, but without the “Almighty-Other”, without the “Great Other” of transcendence. ↗
#difference #god #identity #love #otherness
The problem with people today, is, they have religions but they have no spirituality. They go to church but they cannot even manage the condition of their own souls. They take pride to state the name of their religions and broadcast these things on facebook and everywhere, thinking that the nature of their religion represents the nature of their spirit. It's just the same as how they present their cars, houses, and degrees to the world— to stand as a representation of what they are. That's not spirituality; that's still materialism. Yes, perhaps your car, house and degree represents what you've achieved (or what your status in society is); but your religion does not represent what your spirit is like. You cannot go to a certain church or belong to a certain group of people and have that be a replica of your spirit. ↗
