#my

the mystic must be steadily told,—All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric,—universal signs, instead of these village symbols,—and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies seems to show that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and was at last nothing but an excess of the organ of language. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#mysticism #religion #symbol #religion

Bah, he still saw the same stupidity. The image of the hanged man in the farming community of Yondern flashed through his mind. Now there was a war brewing between the Steelwielders and some foreign religion. More mindless loss over beliefs and mythology. But.. he could not deny the noble features in his companions. Although Perfidian was too blithe and Elaina too didactic, they had risked their life to do what was right. He did owe them his life. He could not deny the nobility he saw in many different people, bits and pieces of nobility that shined through under pressure. The guards who risked their lives to protect the villagers, Markham who flew at the dangerous dwarf, swords flashing; even an Eruthian merchant who stopped in his journey to share tales with complete strangers'. ↗

— T.P. Grish

#fantasy #indie-author #low-magic #magick-and-faith #mythology

Pandora's Box could not be unopened, no one could return to Eden. ↗

— Selena Kitt

#destiny #disillusionment #doom #doomed #eden

It is possible to induce incorrect notions of cause and effect in most people in just a few minutes. All that is necessary is to expose them to rewards which they believe they are generating based on their actions when in fact the rewards are randomly awarded. People will latch onto any seeming success and repeat it, even when they have to explain repeated failures as well. It appears practically impossible, or at least very rare, for humans not to be influenced by immediate experiences of concrete results. This is true even if the experiences turn out to have limited theoretical validity. The moment of surprise is not when people repeat alchemical failures but when they begin to do something else. ↗

— Naomi Janowitz

#magic #magical-thinking #prayer #religion #ritual

Look!" Hawkeye said. Duke looked where Hawkeye was pointing. In one corner, kneeling on the dirt floor with his elbows on his cot, a Bible in front of him, his lips moving slowly, and oblivious to all about him, was Major Jonathan Hobson. "Jesus," Hawkeye said. "It don't look like Him," Duke said. ↗

— Richard Hooker

#humour #religion #religion

I just wish this social institution [religion] wasn't based on what appears to me to be a monumental hoax built on an accumulation of customs and myths directed toward proving something that isn't true. ↗

— Andy Rooney

#customs #falsehood #falsehoods #hoax #institutions

[On Jason Mashak's book SALTY AS A LIP, as reviewed in The Prague Post:] Mashak amalgamates various national, historical and religious traditions into a myth-mash that illuminates many sects' fanatical compartmentalizing, and the fact that so many religions and philosophies share similar goals, if not roots. ↗

— Stephan Delbos

#myth #philosophy #poetry #religion #religion

But personally, I think [sainthood] is not so much the growth of virtue, as simply the replacement of prior vices with an addiction to one's god. ↗

— Lois McMaster Bujold

#religion #saints #religion

In order to witness clearly the march of humanity from its inception to the present moment, an understanding of how humankind has held encounter with the divine as central is crucial. Ancient humanity provides us with an excellent laboratory for gaining such an understanding. ↗

— Roger D. Woodard

#history #humanity #humanity-and-society #mythology #religion

[L]anguage is not the sign of the idea actually existing in the mind of the speaker—but of that which (s)he desires to convey to the hearer. ↗

— Philip Beauchamp

#nature