#secular

It was, however, in the interest of Osama bin Laden for us to destroy a secular Arab leader; it was very much in the interest of the Iranians because they wanted revenge against Saddam Hussein for Iraq's invasion in 1980. ↗

— William Odom

#arab #because #bin #destroy #however

Secularization—that is, the gradual conformity of our thinking, beliefs, commitments, and practices to the pattern of this fading age—is not just something that happens to the church; it is something that happens in the church. In fact, it’s difficult to think of secularism as anything other than a Christian heresy. ↗

— Michael S. Horton

#heresy #secularism #age

The entity God created to traffic His transcendence has fallen far from its mission when it chooses instead to traffic what can be found on any street corner or at the local mall. You may ask, "But how has the church done that?" * By offering secularists what they find mildly interesting and calling it church. *By submitting to self-help sermons where encounter with God is not even on the agenda. * By letting the horizontal excellence of the show stand in for Vertical impact. *By substituting the surprise or shock of superficial entertainment for the supernatural. Church was designed to deliver what we were created to long for. Church must again be about a Vertical encounter that interrupts and alters everything. ↗

— James MacDonald

#purpose #secularists #transcendence #vertical #world

Better for them to deny the mind--and with it rationality, truth, and science itself--than to admit the soul. Once again, the secularist manifests the very dogmatism of which he accuses the religious believer, and in rationalizing it is willing to contemplate absurdities of which no religious believer has ever dreamed. ↗

— Edward Feser

#secularism #dreams

But in the 17th century Russian Orthodoxy was gravely weakened by an internal schism. In the 18th, the country was shaken by Peter's forcibly imposed transformations, which favored the economy, the state, and the military at the expense of the religious spirit and national life. And along with this lopsided Petrine enlightenment, Russia felt the first whiff of secularism; its subtle poisons permeated the educated classes in the course of the 19th century and opened the path to Marxism. By the time of the Revolution, faith had virtually disappeared in Russian educated circles; and amongst the uneducated, its health was threatened. ↗

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#russia #secularism #education

My people are going to learn the principles of democracy the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will, every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men. ↗

— Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

#religion #secularism #men

In a secular age, an authentic miracle must purport to be a hoax, in order to gain credit in the world. ↗

— Angela Carter

#authentic #credit #gain #hoax #miracle

Half of the secular unrest and dismal, profane sadness of modern society comes from the vain ideas that every man is bound to be a critic for life. ↗

— Henry Van Dyke

#comes #critic #dismal #every #every man

I decided to take God and organized religion seriously, and to reject the secular life which in my teens had looked attractive because it allowed me to act in any way that I wanted. ↗

— Luke Ford

#allowed #any #attractive #because #decided

Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn't stack up against a two-millennium-old funeral high mass. ↗

— E. O. Wilson

#against #around #funeral #high #humanists