#religion

The noble old synagogue had been profaned and turned into a stable by the Nazis, and left open to the elements by the Communists, at least after they had briefly employed it as a 'furniture facility.' It had then been vandalized and perhaps accidentally set aflame by incurious and callous local 'youths.' Only the well-crafted walls really stood, though a recent grant from the European Union had allowed a makeshift roof and some wooden scaffolding to hold up and enclose the shell until further notice. Adjacent were the remains of a mikvah bath for the ritual purification of women, and a kosher abattoir for the ritual slaughter of beasts: I had to feel that it was grotesque that these obscurantist relics were the only ones to have survived. In a corner of the yard lay a pile of smashed stones on which appeared inscriptions in Hebrew and sometimes Yiddish. These were all that remained of the gravestones. There wasn't a Jew left in the town, and there hadn't been one, said Mr. Kichler, since 1945. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#religion

Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn't necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious concept. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#external #god #necessarily #religion #search

It's a bit odd that nobody seems to be using the correct technical term to describe organized Islamic terrorists. They are not a faction of a religion or a social movement. They are a cult. A suicide cult. ↗

— Craig Bruce

#correct #cult #describe #faction #islamic

Religion, oh, just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art. ↗

— Ezra Pound

#art #attempt #failures #just #numerous

Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity; and let us put aside all selfishness in consideration of language, nationality, or religion. ↗

— John Comenius

#consideration #end #humanity #language #let us

It does not follow, because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion, that we should therefore leave off being religious at all. By being religious we establish ourselves in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which reality is given us to guard. Our responsible concern is with our private destiny, after all. ↗

— William James

#religion #spirituality #experience

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. ↗

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

#approach #cannot #i #land #maintain

Religion is a temper, not a pursuit. ↗

— Harriet Martineau

#religion #temper

I grew up very religious, and I don't have a great relationship with religion. ↗

— Brad Pitt

#great relationship #grew #i #relationship #religion

I also don't have organized religion on Pern. I figured - since there were four holy wars going on at the time of writing - that religion was one problem Pern didn't need. ↗

— Anne McCaffrey

#figured #four #going #holy #i