#lit

I’m sure I am wrong about many things, although I’m not sure exactly which things I’m wrong about. I’m even sure I’m wrong about what I think I’m right about in at least some cases. ↗

— Brian D. McLaren

#humility #religion #religion

That’s the biggest purpose of religious gathering: permission to look terrible in public. We used to go to church to confess our worst behaviour, to be heard and forgiven, then to be redeemed and accepted back into our community Chuck Palahniuk in interview with TMO ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#religion #transgressive-literature #religion

I bought salvation from a man on the street. He said, "Go down to the beach and let the waves wash your feet. ↗

— Gabriel Rheaume

#detroit #religious #spirituality #suicide #surreal

Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason. ↗

— Jonathan Haidt

#science #religion

Well, pray if you like, only you'd do better to use your judgment. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#religion #religion

Infuriatingly stupid analysts - especially people who called themselves Arabists, yet who seemed to know next to nothing about the reality of the Islamic world - wrote reams of commentary [after 9/11]. Their articles were all about Islam saving Aristotle and the zero, which medieval Muslim scholars had done more than eight hundred years ago; about Islam being a religion of peace and tolerance, not the slightest bit violent. These were fairy tales, nothing to do with the real world I knew. ↗

— Ayaan Hirsi Ali

#politics #religion #religion

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#religion

Religions and states and classes and tribes and nations do not have to work or argue for their adherents and subjects. They more or less inherit them. Against this unearned patrimony there have always been speakers and writers who embody Einstein's injunction to 'remember your humanity and forget the rest.' It would be immodest to claim membership in this fraternity/sorority, but I hope not to have done anything to outrage it. Despite the idiotic sneer that such principles are 'fashionable,' it is always the ideas of secularism, libertarianism, internationalism, and solidarity that stand in need of reaffirmation. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#atheism #internationalism #libertarianism #politics #religion

When religious groups in a conflict eliminate the personal element and perceive themselves as representatives of collectives, heir actions tend to become more "radical" and "merciless." (Ch.3, by Jaco Cilliers, p. 48) ↗

— David R. Smock

#religion #spirituality #religion

[The haggadah] was made to teach, and it will continue to teach. And it might teach a lot more than just the Exodus story." What do you mean?" Well, from what you've told me, the book has survived the same human disaster over and over again. Think about it. You've got a society where people tolerate difference, like Spain in the Convivencia, and everything's humming along: creative, prosperous. Then somehow this fear, this hate, this need to demonize 'the other' -- it just sort of rears up and smashes the whole society. Inquisition, Nazis, extremist Serb nationalists... same old, same old. It seems to me that the book, at this point, bears witness to all that. ↗

— Geraldine Brooks

#religion #religion