Quotes About Belief

The problem, however, comes within the reach of possible solution, if we distinguish between sovereignty as an inherent power, and the exercise of sovereignty. God may limit the exercise of his sovereignty to make room for the free action of his creatures. It is by his sovereign decree that man is free. Without such self-limitation he could not admonish men to repent and believe. Here, again, the Calvinistic logic must either bend or break.

One person's religion is another person's cult.

The actual word 'spirituality' was first used in Christianity before it extended to other world religions where it is now used quite general.

For most people, whether religious or not, spirituality involves values and a principled lifestyle both of which are supported by specific spiritual practices including prayer or meditation.

By then it was more of an observation than a decision; it was less a matter of abandoning the faith than waking up to the fact that it had disappeared, quietly leaked away, as if there had been a small hole in my tank all along.

what proof is there that dupery through hope is so much worse than dupery through fear?

Spinoza is more than happy with this conclusion: he is a thorough-going determinist 'Experience tells us clearly that men believe themselves to be free simply because they are conscious of their actions and unconscious of the causes whereby these actions are determined; further, it is plain that the dictates of the mind are simply another name for the appetites that vary according to the varying state of the body.

It is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously," Daniel Kahneman noted, "but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true."17

but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.

They are all men (always men) of strong conviction and profound trust in their own judgement.

Call me an "optimistic skeptic.

By this time, I had become fond of the story that nobody wanted. I revised it again and had 200 twenty-four-page pamphlets printed at my own expense. I sent these out as Christmas cards for Christmas, 1943.

We made up our own religions and pretended they came from outside us.

Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.

Far from breaking with tradition, they understood the Great War and its aftermath in the light of tradition, believing, as did their literary and spiritual ancestors, that ours is a fallen world yet not a forsaken one.

The unavoidable harshness of life surprised none of them, for they were Christians one and all, believing that they inhabited a fallen world, albeit one filled with God's grace.

Fourteenth-century men seemed to have regarded their doctor in rather the same way as the twentieth-century men are apt to regard their priest, with tolerance for someone who was doing his best and the respect due to a man of learning but also with a nagging and uncomfortable conviction that he was largely irrelevant to the real and urgent problems of their lives.

The irony at the base of this situation is that the gospel of the free market is just as ideological as those of communism and fascism.

They could simply not accept that there might be no God, precisely because that would mean that life was not inherently meaningful. In their heart of hearts they were unwilling to confront the possibility that they themselves, the vast universe of every individual consciousness, could be as meaningless and as random as a leaf whirled into the air by a gust of wind. The

In other words, it makes no difference whether one believes in God. As there is no way of proving or disproving the object of this belief, it remains a personal choice, much like a preference for a particular dish or for strong coffee. You may believe what you want, as long as it helps you live. This

The only disadvantage of an honest heart is credulity

I believe in me, in my view of the world. I believe in my responsibility for my own destiny, guilt for my own sins, merit for my own good deeds, determination of my own life. I don't believe in miracles, I believe in hard work.

Just because one man calls him Allah and another calls him God is no reason for believers to be enemies.

This is important: he sees me in a certain way, a way he will never deviate from. In the end, love was only possible because he saw me not as who I was, but as the person I would become.