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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #religion
Living in filth was regarded by great numbers of holy men, who set an example to the Church and to society, as an evidence of sanctity. St. Jerome and the Breviary of the Roman Church dwell with unction on the fact that St. Hilarion lived his whole life long in utter physical uncleanliness; St. Athanasius glorifies St. Anthony because he had never washed his feet; St. Abraham's most striking evidence of holiness was that for fifty years he washed neither his hands nor his feet; St. Sylvia never washed any part of her body save her fingers; St. Euphraxia belonged to a convent in which the nuns religiously abstained from bathing. St. Mary of Egypt was emninent for filthiness; St. Simon Stylites was in this respect unspeakable - the least that can be said is, that he lived in ordure and stench intolerable to his visitors. ↗
Why do you want a letter from me? Why don't you take the trouble to find out for yourselves what Christianity is? You take time to learn technical terms about electricity. Why don't you do as much for theology? Why do you never read the great writings on the subject, but take your information from the secular 'experts' who have picked it up as inaccurately as you? Why don't you learn the facts in this field as honestly as your own field? Why do you accept mildewed old heresies as the language of the church, when any handbook on church history will tell you where they came from? Why do you balk at the doctrine of the Trinity - God the three in One - yet meekly acquiesce when Einstein tells you E=mc2? What makes you suppose that the expression "God ordains" is narrow and bigoted, while your own expression, "Science demands" is taken as an objective statement of fact? You would be ashamed to know as little about internal combustion as you know about Christian beliefs. I admit, you can practice Christianity without knowing much theology, just as you can drive a car without knowing much about internal combustion. But when something breaks down in the car, you go humbly to the man who understands the works; whereas if something goes wrong with religion, you merely throw the works away and tell the theologian he is a liar. Why do you want a letter from me telling you about God? You will never bother to check on it or find out whether I'm giving you personal opinions or Christian doctrines. Don't bother. Go away and do some work and let me get on with mine. ↗
When the late Pope John Paul II decided to place the woman so strangely known as “Mother” Teresa on the fast track for beatification, and thus to qualify her for eventual sainthood, the Vatican felt obliged to solicit my testimony and I thus spent several hours in a closed hearing room with a priest, a deacon, and a monsignor, no doubt making their day as I told off, as from a rosary, the frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic. In the course of this, I discovered that the pope during his tenure had surreptitiously abolished the famous office of “Devil’s Advocate,” in order to fast‐track still more of his many candidates for canonization. I can thus claim to be the only living person to have represented the Devil pro bono. ↗
#beatification #canonisation #deacons #devil #devil-s-advocate
عليك بالمطالب العالية والمراتب السامية التي لا تنال إلا بطاعة الله، فإن الله عز وجل قضى أن لا ينال ما عنده إلا بطاعته. ومن كان لله كما يريد كان الله له فوق ما يريد، فمن أقبل عليه تلقاه من بعيد، ومن تصرف بحوله وقوته ألان له الحديد، ومن ترك لأجله أعطاه فوق المزيد، ومن أراد مراده الديني أراد ما يريد ↗
Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns. ↗
Why are those who are notoriously undisciplined and unmoral also most contemptuous of religion and morality? They are trying to solace their own unhappy lives by pulling the happy down to their own abysmal depths. ↗
Currently spirituality is at an ebb in the more advanced technological societies. This in part because memes that validate spiritual order tend to lose their credibility with time, and need to be recast in new forms again and again. At present we are living in an era when many of the basic tenents of Christianity, which has supported Western spiritual values for almost two thousand yearsm have come into conflict with the conclusions of science and philosophy. While religions have lost much of their power, science and technology have not been able to generate convincing value systems to replace them. ↗
I sucked that smoke in and made it part of me, joined mystically with the universe right at that point, said Yes to drugs forever just by the unique hit I got from that one packet of fags Andy liberated from his dad. It was a revelation, an epiphany; a sudden realisation that it was possible for matter - something there in front of you, in your hand, in your lungs, in your pocket - to take your brain apart and reassemble it in ways you hadn't thought of previously. This was better than religion, or this was what people meant by religion! The whole point was that this worked! People said Believe In God or Do Well At School or Buy This or Vote For Me or whatever, but nothing ever worked the way substances worked, nothing ever fucking delivered the way they did. They were truth. Everything else was falsehood. ↗
گوشهي اولين صفحهي كتابي كه باز كردم، نوشته بود: در خبر است كه حق جلّ جلاله سه نام از نامهاي خود به ابراهيم فرستاد؛ يكي از آن «آه» بود كه ابراهيم بر دوام ميگفتي: آه. اگر تندرستان و اهل سلامت را نود و نه نام بيايد، نود و نه همه از زبان برآيد، اما آه از ميان جان برآيد. زبان و كام را به آه، راه نيست. . وقتي ميگويند تو جاي حق نشستهاي، يعني همين؟ آه، اسم تو باشد يا نباشد، هُرم نفسهاي عاشقان، دلسوختگان، ستمديدگان و بيپناهان است. و اين حكايت تمثيلي است از اين كه تو در نفسهاي هر عاشقي، هر بيپناه و دلسوخته و سرگشتهاي هستي و به قدر نفسي حتي چشم از آنها برنميداري... براي همينهاست كه دوستت دارم وقتي آن قدر حضورت در زندگيها تماشايي است كه آه ميشود نامي از نامهاي تو. كدام كس را ميشناسي كه «آه» نگويد؟! چه تو را بشناسد، چه نه! و چه بداند به هر آهي كه ميكشد صدايت كرده يا نداند! آه نام توست! حتي اگر آنها كه آه ميگويند ندانند تو را صدا ميزنند، تو، خودت كه ميداني. جواب ميدهي سلام؛ شايد. شايد براي اين است كه آه كشيدن، آراممان ميكند. هر بار آه ميكشيم، تو همين جا سلام ميگويي. و ما آرام ميشويم. اگر نشد رمضاني را به جشن بنشينم، به جشن سخن گفتن تو با زمين، با مردم، با انسان؛ اگر نشد مهماني تو را شبيه پرشكوهترين مهماني انساني و روحاني پاي بكوبم، تمامش را آه ميكشم تا آني، و كمتر از آني از يادت خالي نشوم.ه ↗
