Quotes About Belief

Like some strange little religion all its own, the one thing that makes the whole system work is the one thing that it robs you of - faith.

Like anything else, I think organized religion, like most human endeavors, is good when it's doing good and I think it's bad when it's doing bad.

That's how it worked, though. Motive and opportunity rode along like two out of four apocalyptic equestrians, grinning with their bony death heads at us lesser humans as we fumbled along, refusing to believe the obvious.

Motive and opportunity rode along like two out of four apocalyptic equestrians, grinning with their bony death heads at us lesser humans as we fumbled along, refusing to believe the obvious.

He began moving again, and I spoke after him under my breath in a voice he couldn't have possibly heard. "I wish I had as much faith in me as you do in me." But nonetheless, did. "So do I.

Funny how your attitude about spirituality could change when the chips were down.

Jesus said if you seek Him you will find Him. I often wonder to myself why this marvelous gift of eternal life through Christ is often the last option of people rather than the first.

If we must "feel" God's presence before we believe he is with us, we again reduce God to our ability to grasp him, making him an idol instead of acknowledging him as God.

Western theology invariably asks the question: Are miracles possible? This of course addresses the Enlightenment problem of a closed universe. In much of Asia that is a non-question because the miraculous is assumed and fairly regularly experienced.—Hwa Yung

He does miracles when we need them—not for our entertainment or to make us feel "spiritual.

Millions of Bible-reading Christians who today call themselves charismatics do not believe in health and wealth teachings.

All Christian churches in China practice some form of healing, including Three-Self churches. In fact, according to some surveys, 90% of new believers cite healing as a reason for their conversion. This is especially true in the countryside where medical facilities are often inadequate or non-existent. —Edmond Tang

Oral Roberts's informal estimate of 10 percent healed (Stewart, Only Believe, 58); in the modern faith movement, see Barron, Gospel, 125–36. Van Brenk, "Wagner," 257, cites 29 percent completely healed for Wagner (which would be quite high).

You need to understand that truth is stranger than fiction. Listen: people are willing to swallow any old tripe as long as you say it without flinching. They want to be told stuff. And they don't want to doubt you either. It's too hard.

Well, see, I think it's that most people don't like that lonely feeling. People don't like looking up and feeling small or lost. That's what I think prayer is all about. It doesn't matter which stories they believe in, they're all doing the same thing, kind of casting a line out to outer space, like there's something out there to connect to. It's like people make themselves part of something bigger that way, and maybe it makes them less afraid.

And it happens like that. Like when you first realize that there is no such thing as magic. Or that nothing actually answers your prayers, or really even listens. That cold moment of dismay where your feet are kicked from under you, where you're disarmed by a shard of knowing.

And it happens like that. Like when you first realise that there is no such thing as magic.

See, everyone here's afraid of something and nuthin. This town, that's how they live, and they don't even know it. They stick to what they know, what they bin told. They don't unnerstand that it's just a choice you make.

Right. I guess it must be comforting to actually believe in God and Jesus and all that. It must fill in all that space so you don't have to worry about it anymore. But it's a bit like closing a door when there's a cold draft, isn't it? It's still cold out there, it's just that you don't notice anymore because you're warm.

people are willing to swallow any old tripe as long as you say it without flinching. They want to be told stuff. And they don't want to doubt you either. It's too hard. So if you say it like you really mean it to be true, then you're away.

There's no such thing as God, Charlie, at least not how they say.

I look forward to the day the cross sits discarded beside the swastika as just another reminder of the dangers of blind faith.

Isaac Asimov got close to the truth when he said in 1974, "Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

As Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg said in 2017, "Optimists tend to be successful, and pessimists tend to be right. . . . If you think that something's going to be terrible and it's going to fail, then you're going to look for the data points that prove you right. And you'll find them. That's what pessimists do. . . . But if you think that something is possible, then you're going to try to find a way to make it work.