#religion

I don't care what is written," Meyer Landsman says. "I don't care what supposedly got promised to some sandal-wearing idiot whose claim to fame is that he was ready to cut his own son's throat for the sake of a hare-brained idea. I don't care about red heifers and patriarchs and locusts. A bunch of old bones in the sand. My homeland is in my hat. It's in my ex-wife's tote bag. ↗

— Michael Chabon

#home #identity #jewish #nationality #religion

He has done things that caused me to doubt His wisdom, but never His existence. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#religion

Will these millions of children, for generations upon future generations, know that some of their atoms cycled through this woman? [...] Will they feel what she felt in her life, will their memories have flickering strokes of her memories, will they recall that moment long ago when she stood by the window, guilt ridden and confused, and watched as the tadr bird circled the cistern? No, it is not possible. [...] But I will let them have their own brief glimpse of the Void, just at that moment they pass from living to dead, from animate to inanimate, from consciousness to that which has no consciousness. For a moment, they will understand infinity. ↗

— Alan Lightman

#death #religion #science-fiction #death

There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present. ↗

— Iris Murdoch

#death #life #religion #death

At the round earth's imagined corners blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go ; All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow, All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe. But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ; For, if above all these my sins abound, 'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace, When we are there. Here on this lowly ground, Teach me how to repent, for that's as good As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood. ↗

— John Donne

#poetry #religion #age

I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed. ↗

— Barney Frank

#biased #cannot #cause #characterize #committed

The secret of a person's nature lies in their religion and what they really believes about the world and their place in it. ↗

— James Anthony Froude

#believes #lies #nature #person #place

Religion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place - service - social service - the ants creed, the bees creed. ↗

— John Galsworthy

#because #bees #belief #creed #dead

All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#lives #may #nothing #other #proclaim

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#generosity #gentleness #possession #race #religion