Religious Quotes - Page 242

Isaac Watts, of course, is a hymn writer in the tradition of Congregationalism who lived in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. He is very interesting and important because he was also a metaphysician. He knew a great deal about what was, for him, contemporary science. He was very much influenced by Isaac Newton, for example. There are planets and meteors and so on showing up in his hymns very often. But, again, the scale of his religious imagination corresponds to a very generously scaled scientific imagination.

Of course, mysticism is very hard to isolate because, given the kind of consciousness that I was sort of instructed in as religious consciousness; that borders on mysticism so closely that it's hard to know whether you qualify or not, or whether mysticism is artificially isolated when it is treated as a separate thing from experience. Obviously, mysticism can be a form of madness, but then consciousness can be a form of madness.

It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he's right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146)

When you grow up in America things like Christianity waters down your feeling... When you're taught to love everybody, taught to love you're enemies, what value does that put on love?

I am truly amazed that after all this time, religious groups still need to attack entertainment and use these tragedies as a pitiful excuse for their own self-serving publicity. In response to their protests, I will provide a show where I balance my songs with a wholesome Bible reading. This way, fans will not only hear my so-called, violent point of view, but we can also examine the virtues of wonderful 'Christian' stories of disease, murder, adultery, suicide and child sacrifice. Now that seems like 'entertainment' to me.

It says right here you've got to be saved to go to heaven. But the way I see it, you've only got to be yourself to go to hell.

If God does exist, it's in music and in art, I think there's more spiritually in what I do than in a lot of religious groups judging, especially in the way they've treated me in the past couple of years. I've grown tired of talking about religion. It's time for me to move on. I'm trying to redefine the idea of spirituality and make it now such a bad word for myself, because I find that I sound really stupid saying it sometimes

When I was a child, my society lifted me up - though education primarily, as well as through other kinds of cultural stimulation. It wasn't just my parents or my religious community. The entire society lifted me up to the bottom rung of the ladder. Then they said, "Girl, it's up to you whether or not you climb." I don't have a problem with that. I think that is the best way to go about living.

The religious stories, the religious truths, the spiritual principles - obviously, they don't change. But as you get older and you experience more, you recognize the applicability, the profundity, and the fundamental truths of spiritual principles in ways that you couldn't when you simply were living a less dimensional life.

Spirituality is an inner fire, a mystical sustenance that feeds our souls. The mystical journey drives us into ourselves, to a sacred flame at our center. The purpose of the religious experience is to develop the eyes by which we see this inner flame, and our capacity to live its mystery. In its presence, we are warmed and ignited. When too far from the blaze, we are cold and spiritually lifeless. We are less than human without that heat. Our connection to God is life itself.

Organized religious institutions are in for a huge transformation, for the simple reason that people have become genuinely religious in spite of them.

I grew up in a very religious family and it is the motivating force to every thing I do. I am fortunate to have had adults all around me who really lived their faith, in helping other people and doing the best you can do.

I grew up in a very religious family and it is the motivating force to every thing I do. I am fortunate to have had adults all around me who really lived their faith, in helping other people and doing the best you can do. The world wasn't so wonderful back then, with segregated rule in the South. But we were never hopeless and we never despaired because we had adults out there struggling with us, being there for us, and buffering us.

If I had a religious belief, I would want it to be as strong as my belief in the theater.

Men who would persecute others for religious opinions, prove the errors of their own.

My grandmother was very important to me. She gave me my religious education. She gave me a sense of the female side of Judaism, of the rich store of stories and legends of the women of the schtetl.

Every Jewish holiday has a religious significance, a historical significance, and a relevance to the time of year in the natural calendar of the seasons and trees and growing things, as well as a personal significance. So you are always looking backward, outward, inward and forward.

The interesting thing about the religious component, for me, is that Jesus hardly mentions sex at all. He's pretty interested in the poor, he's pretty interested in selling your worldly goods and storing up riches in heaven. However, religious fundamentalists have made it all about sex, and that's like saying, "Look at the sex and we're just not going to talk about what you may be doing in a financial way that is sinful."

As a philosopher, I have a right to ask for a rational explanation of religious faith.

One who has sinned cannot escape retribution in any other way than by repentance corresponding to his sin.

Whatever we do or say without prayer always ends up either sinful or harmful and convicts us through the deeds in some mysterious way.

Consistently pray in all things, so that you might not do anything without the help of God ... Whoever does or busies himself with anything without prayer does not succeed in the end. Concerning this, the Lord said: "Without Me you can't do anything". (John 15:5)

Do not desire to hear about the misfortunes of those who oppose you. For those who listen to such speech later reap the fruits of their evil intention.

If someone puts his trust in God in a matter, let him not argue with his brother about it.

It is harmful to remember previous sins in detail. For if they bring you sorrow, they will estrange you from hope, but if they are remembered without sorrow, they will introduce the previous defilement. If you want to bring to God an uncondemned confession, then don't remember your sins in detail, but manfully endure the suffering that is coming because of them.