Quotes About Belief

If the young Luther had, like the British soldiers of 1914, assumed that the conflict would all be over by Christmas, the later Luther knew that the struggle was actually going to last until the end of time—and that that was much further into the future than he had ever imagined in even his worst nightmares.

Christian theology, in other words, always has a certain ineradicable complexity, which has serious implications for the modern evangelical predilection for simple and very brief statements of faith.

Of course, that a sentence is utterly fallacious has never prevented it from being believed by large numbers of people and, on occasion, used as a foundational principle for a comprehensive philosophy of life.

In sum, the social imaginary is the way people think about the world, how they imagine it to be, how they act intuitively in relation to it—though that is emphatically not to make the social imaginary simply into a set of identifiable ideas.3 It is the totality of the way we look at our world, to make sense of it and to make sense of our behavior within it.

Abandoning the myth of the evangelical movement can only help us, as it will free us to be who we truly are and to speak the gospel in all of its richness as we understand it.

the Christian as a Christian has a power that is to be conceived of in cross-shaped terms, and the church, as the body of believers, is also to see its power and its role in a spiritual manner.

The revelation is this: don't wait for some revelation. We make our own luck.

Evidence that contradicts the ruling belief system is held to extraordinary standards, while evidence that entrenches it is uncritically accepted.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science?

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I don't want to believe. I want to know.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.

There are dreams stronger than death. Men and women die holding these dreams.

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on the way.

What makes you so arrogant to think that Christ's Atonement is for everyone else in the history of the world except you?

Your view of the world is just as skewed as someone who has never seen combat... We all state our convictions from within our convictions.

We cannot live without meaning, that would preclude any sense of identity, any hope, any future.

There is no true religious formation which is not based on the Gospel.

Every means has proved powerless, every path too short. God's impenetrable night wraps round us. Terrible loneliness accompanies us, but this is necessary and inevitable. Every word of consolation seems like a lie. One believes one has been abandoned by God.

When the dead person cries, it is a sign that he is on the road to get well,' said the Crow solemnly.

Per questo le aveva regalato quella moneta: come una specie di portafortuna per tutti e due. Gliel'aveva regalata - riflette Mr. Silvera mentre il campanile suona l'una e mezzo - come una di quelle monete che si gettano nelle fontane di lontani paesi, di lontane città, con la speranza di tornare. Ma l'aveva anche avvertita che era falsa.