#judaism

We realize that Judaism as a faith can survive only in an atmosphere of general faith. ↗

— Louis Finkelstein

#faith #general #judaism #only #realize

My belief is that I wasn't born into Judaism by accident, and so I needed to find ways to honor that. ↗

— Ram Dass

#belief #born #find #honor #i

I believe in Christianity, Judaism and Islamism, but I stay away from churches, synagogues and mosques. ↗

— Ted Lange

#believe #christianity #churches #i #i believe

Antisemitism is unique among religious hatreds. It is a racist conspiracy theory fashioned for the needs of messianic and brutal rulers, as dictators from the Tsars to the Islamists via the Nazis have shown. Many other alleged religious 'hatreds' are not hatreds in the true sense. If I criticise Islamic, Orthodox Jewish or Catholic attitudes towards women, for instance, and I'm accused of being a bigot, I shrug and say it is not bigoted to oppose bigotry. ↗

— Nick Cohen

#bigotry #catholicism #conspiracy-theories #dictatorship #feminism

The attempt made in recent decades by secularist thinkers to disengage the moral principles of western civilization from their scripturally based religious context, in the assurance that they could live a life of their own as "humanistic" ethics, has resulted in our "cut flower culture." Cut flowers retain their original beauty and fragrance, but only so long as they retain the vitality that they have drawn from their now-severed roots; after that is exhausted, they wither and die. So with freedom, brotherhood, justice, and personal dignity — the values that form the moral foundation of our civilization. Without the life-giving power of the faith out of which they have sprung, they possess neither meaning nor vitality. ↗

— Will Herberg

#faith #judaism #religion #secularism #western-civilization

Life and the universe are not a spiritless chance occurrence without a purpose, nor are they a trick performed by a supernatural magician." - A Time of Change ↗

— Paul Greene

#evolution #intelligent-design #islam #judaism #pyramids

The five points of yama, together with the five points of niyama, remind us of the Ten Commandments of the Christtian and Jewish faiths, as well as of the ten virtues of Buddhism. In fact, there is no religion without these moral or ethical codes. All spiritual life should be based on these things. They are the foundation stones without which we can never build anything lasting. (127) ↗

— Swami Satchidananda

#christianity #dharma #ethics #judaism #niyama

One notorious apikoros named Hiwa al-Balkhi, writing in ninth-century Persia, offered two hundred awkward questions to the faithful. He drew upon himself the usual thunderous curses—'may his name be forgotten, may his bones be worn to nothing'—along with detailed refutations and denunciations by Abraham ibn Ezra and others. These exciting anathemas, of course, ensured that his worrying 'questions' would remain current for as long as the Orthodox commentaries would be read. In this way, rather as when Maimonides says that the Messiah will come but that 'he may tarry,' Jewishness contrives irony at its own expense. If there is one characteristic of Jews that I admire, it is that irony is seldom if ever wasted on them. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#atheism #curses #heretics #hiwi-al-balkhi #irony

during the long period which elapsed between the Egyptian and the Babylonian servitudes, the hopes as well as fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within the narrow compass of the present life. ↗

— Edward Gibbon

#judaism #faith

There is, in truth, no genuine confrontation between faith and law; there is no choice between them. If one starts out with a philosophy of despair and is willing to abandon life in its biological and socio­-historica1 fullness to its doom of futility and meaninglessness, one is bound to seek salvation in some otherworldly spiritual redemption. One has not chosen faith and rejected law', one has rejected life and thus needs no law. ↗

— Eliezer Berkovits

#religion #faith