Favorite Comments

[jayem]

Several of my favorite quotes regarding religion:

An evil man will do a good deed if it benefits him. But it takes religion to make a good man do an evil deed.
Christopher Hitchens

When one person suffers from an illusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from an illusion, it is called a religion.
Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.
Victor Stenger

Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
Sigmund Freud

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
Marie Curie

 

[Jo555]

Several of my favorite quotes regarding religion:

An evil man will do a good deed if it benefits him. But it takes religion to make a good man do an evil deed.
Christopher Hitchens

When one person suffers from an illusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from an illusion, it is called a religion.
Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.
Victor Stenger

Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
Sigmund Freud

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
Marie Curie

Unfortunately religion, as in man established, is the trap many fall into instead of a true relationship with God and others.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Jo555]

There is one particular excerpt that I absolutely love from "War and Peace" because it wonderfully describes how, as believers, our lives are to be lived.
We were never meant to live partaking of the knowledge of good and evil. We were meant to live with the eyes of our hearts on the Lord where the vision of Him transports us to another, higher realm of Him and his love.
Instead of going on about it, I'll give the floor to Tolstoy. Just be sure to substitute the Lord for Natasha in the excerpt below and you will see it is a wonderful expression of what that process is like. Here we go...

"From that day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostov's with Natasha's look of gratitude still in mind, had gazed at the comet that appeared to be fixed in the sky and felt something new was beginning for him-from that day the besetting problem of the vanity and absurdity of all earthly things had ceased to trouble him. That terrible question of "Why? What for?" which till then had arisen in the midst of every occupation, was now replaced, not by another question or the answer to the former one, but by her image. Whether he read or was told of human abasement or folly, he was not horrified as formerly, and did not ask himself why men struggled when all is so emphemeral and uncertain, but remembered her as he has last seen her, and all his doubts vanished-not that she answered the questions that confronted him, but because his vision of her instantly transported him to another, brighter realm of spiritual activity, where there could be neither right nor wrong, a realm of beauty and love that was worth living for.​

 

[Jo555]

There is one particular excerpt that I absolutely love from "War and Peacebecause it wonderfully describes how, as believers, our lives are to be lived.
We were never meant to live partaking of the knowledge of good and evil. We were meant to live with the eyes of our hearts on the Lord where the vision of Him transports us to another, higher realm of Him and his love.
Instead of going on about it, I'll give the floor to Tolstoy. Just be sure to substitute the Lord for Natasha in the excerpt below and you will see it is a wonderful expression of what that process is like. Here we go...

"From that day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostov's with Natasha's look of gratitude still in mind, had gazed at the comet that appeared to be fixed in the sky and felt something new was beginning for him-from that day the besetting problem of the vanity and absurdity of all earthly things had ceased to trouble him. That terrible question of "Why? What for?" which till then had arisen in the midst of every occupation, was now replaced, not by another question or the answer to the former one, but by her image. Whether he read or was told of human abasement or folly, he was not horrified as formerly, and did not ask himself why men struggled when all is so emphemeral and uncertain, but remembered her as he has last seen her, and all his doubts vanished-not that she answered the questions that confronted him, but because his vision of her instantly transported him to another, brighter realm of spiritual activity, where there could be neither right nor wrong, a realm of beauty and love that was worth living for.​

 

[Jo555]

The best theology is probably no theology; just love one another.

Charles M Shulz

 

[Jo555]

If I were given the opportunity to present a gift to the next generation, it would be the ability for each individual to learn to laugh at himself.

Charles M. Schulz

 

[MehGuy]

"I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more, because all suffering is sweet to me."

-Saint Therese Of Lisieux.

"The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far."

-Friedrich Nietzsche.

I like these quotes. One, is how I viewed suffering under a spiritual lens and the latter is how I sadly view suffering under a secular lens.

 

[partinobodycular]

"Piety is the mask that the self-righteous put on to mislead the innocent and gullible" - partinobodycular

 

[Sif]

Here are a few of mine:

Be your friend's true friend. Return gift for gift. Repay laughter with laughter again but betrayal with treachery. - The Havamal (Nordic wisdom)

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. - Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them - Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven - The Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi) and Ursula K. LeGuin, The Lathe of Heaven

Non est ad astra mollis e terris via (There is no easy path from the earth to the stars) - Seneca (attributed)

 

[NewTestamentChristian]

Just a few:

• The universe is change; Our life is what our thoughts make it. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, bk. 4)
• Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, bk. 4)
• Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, bk. 4)
• The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, bk. 6)
• Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, bk. 7)
• To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable. (Epictetus, Discourses, bk. 1)
• Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. (Epictetus, Enchiridion).
• The highest perfection of human life consists in the mind of man being detached from care, for the sake of God. (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles)
• The unexamined life is not worth living. (Socrates, Apology)
• They who accord with Heaven are preserved, and they who rebel against Heaven perish. (Mencius, The Mencius, bk 4)
• The Superior Man is all-embracing and not partial. The inferior man is partial and not all-embracing. (Confucius, The Analects, ch. 2)
• There is one river of truth, but many streams fall into it on this side and that. (St. Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata).
• He knows his own strength; he knows that he was born to carry burdens. (Seneca, Moral Letters, letter 71)
• God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. (The Serenity Prayer)
• God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always. (The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous)
• My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. (The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous)