#religion

To every Armageddonist, every earth lover must keep saying with all the sincerity and affection we can muster, “May God make this world as beautiful to you as it has been to me. ↗

— David James Duncan

#nature #religion #religious-freedom #spirituality #beauty

I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty. ↗

— Jon Krakauer

#beauty

the only unfailing guide I’ve ever found through the innumerable blind alleys of my life as a writer, man, husband, father, citizen, steward, or believer, is the love burning in my heart. for me, prayer is about one thing: making contact with that love. though it burns in there like a candle flame, hot, bright, beautiful, love’s flame is so fragile… keeping one’s love burning, and living in accord with that burning: this, to me, is prayer. ↗

— David James Duncan

#prayer #religion #spirituality #beauty

Whole life is a search for beauty. But, when the beauty is found inside, the search ends and a beautiful journey begins. ↗

— Harshit Walia

#indian-fiction #inner-beauty #journey #life #philosophical

Your religious beliefs are your business. They are not and should not be the basis for law. If you use them as justification to discriminate against others, don’t be upset when others decide you’re an asshole." [Blog post of July 26, 2011] ↗

— Jim C. Hines

#discrimination #law #religion #business

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#business #easy #enemy #enough #friendly

Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you—even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers, and triumphs over all opposition. Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world. So none of this is happening. Such things could not occur. Never a word of it is literally true. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#business

Religion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone. ↗

— Karl Barth

#confidence #every #except #god #ground

It is the business of man to become acquainted with the material universe in all of its manifestations, so far as may be possible, in order to provide a foundation of knowledge on which the reasoning mind of man may increasingly build. ↗

— John Andreas Widtsoe

#wisdom #business

He's not a bad guy, John. It's human nature. He wanted it to be some mistake I made that he wouldn't have made, some flaw in me that he didn't share, so he could believe it wouldn't have happened to him. But it wasn't my fault. It was either blind, dumb, stupid luck from start to finish, in which case, we are all in the wrong business gentleman, or it was a God I cannot worship. ↗

— Mary Doria Russell

#religion #business