Quotes About Belief

Orthodoxy as right belief will cost us little; indeed, it will allow us to sit back with our Pharisaic doctrines, guarding the 'truth' with the purity of our interpretations. But orthodoxy, as believing in the right way, as bringing love to the world around us and within us … that will cost us everything. For to live by that sword, as we all know, is to die by it.

Our real beliefs are generally not to be found at the level of ego.

The evidence of "forgiveness of sin" is not found in a profession of belief, but in a life freed from self-destructive pursuits, scapegoating, and violence.

In contrast, the a/theistic approach can be seen as a form of disbelieving what one believes, or rather, believing in God while remaining dubious concerning what one believes about God (a distinction that fundamentalism is unable to maintain).

What we see taking place in the church today is the reduction of God to an idol.

In other words, the claim I believe in God is nothing but a lie if it is not manifest in our lives, because one only believes in God insofar as one loves.

It is a testament to our naïveté about culture that we think that we can change it by simply declaring new values. Such declarations usually produce only cynicism.

Words do have consequences, and what one generation says but does not really believe, the next generation may believe, and even act upon.

To say that life is meaningless is to express an attitude, not to state a fact

If we reject, as we must, the doctrine that the majority is always right, to submit moral issues to the vote is to gamble that what we believe to be right will come out of the ballot with more votes behind it than what we believe to be wrong; and that is a gamble we will often lose.

If the foundations of an ideological position are knocked out from under it, new foundations will be found, or else the ideological position will just hang there, defying the logical equivalent of the laws of gravity.

Those who lie and cheat, but do not believe what they are doing to be wrong, may be living according to ethical standards. They may believe, for any of a number of possible reasons, that it is right to lie, cheat, steal and so on. They are not living according to conventional ethical standards, but they may be living according to some other ethical standards.

La creencia de que existen los animales porque Dios los creó - y que los creó para que podamos responder mejor a nuestras necesidades - es contraria a nuestra comprensión científica de la evolución y, por supuesto, a los registros fósiles, que demuestran la existencia de primates no-humanos y otros animales millones de años antes de que hubiera seres humanos en absoluto».

What we do here is physiologically impossible. So we must train the body to accept the impossible, and then it will become possible.

Everything here is a lie, Rose said. Just because you saw it doesn't mean it really happened. Tom nodded. He was curiously reluctant to take up this hope she offered. If he reached out, it might bite his hand.

But you do not reject the supernatural out of hand,' Sears said. 'I don't know if I do or do not,' I said. 'Like most people.

In a Sufi fable, the elephant fell in love with a firefly, and imagined that it shone for no other creature but he; and when it flew long distances away, he was confident that at the center of its light was the image of an elephant.

people who thought he was God yesterday morning, did a 360-degree turn twelve hours later.

The first lie of a map—also the first lie of fiction—is that it is the truth.

We compile mental maps that are wildly skewed, a mental atlas so large and complex that we can never fully convey it to anyone else. Then we live in the world those maps create.

In fact, the most important influence predicting a person's level of generalized trust is the attitude of his parents.84 And that would make generalized trust a culturally transmitted trait. Lorenzo

SADE Desprezo essas manifestações da masa que giram em círculo vicioso (...) Desprezo todas essas boas intenções que se perdem nas vielas desprezo todos os sacrifícios feitos por alguma coisa Só acredito em mim mesmo.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it. ROALD DAHL

To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved. GEORGE MACDONALD