Quotes About Belief

We can't afford to be Pollyannas or blind ourselves to real dangers, but we also should try not to succumb to despair. If we believe our vision for what our country is is worth fighting for, then we should fight for it. This is our right and duty as citizens.

I waver between a cop-out agnostic and principled atheism

the moment you begin to believe you're worthy of the good things in your life - God gets all Old Testament on your ass and does something vicious, something insane, something totally uncalled for. He gives you lupus or He allows Satan to slaughter your children and cattle or He delivers Ohio to George W. Bush.

The proper response to religious opposition to choice or love or death can be reduced to a series of bumper stickers: Don't approve of abortion? Don't have one. Don't approve of gay marriage? Don't have one. Don't approve of physician-assisted suicide? For Christ's sake, don't have one. But don't tell me I can't have one - each and every one - because it offends your God.

After fifty-five years of dedicating his life and work to the story of ethical systems, Sol Weintraub had come to a single, unshakable conclusion: any allegiance to a deity or concept or universal principal which put obedience above decent behavior toward an innocent human being was evil.

Belief in one's identity as a poet or writer prior to the acid test of publication is as naive and harmless as the youthful belief in one's immortality... and the inevitable disillusionment is just as painful.

In 1843 he declared: "I believe the bible, as it ought to be, as it came from the pen of the original writers." He then gave an example of a problematic text that was resolved in his revision of the Old Testament, implying that he had corrected the text to its original reading.11

Smith's procedure is similar to that of ancient pseudepigraphists who, in the words of one scholar, "created something new, an imaginary Sacred Past, the way it should have been.

I believe that Smith probably had in mind a number of shifting geographic models:

Statistically, people recover or die at the same rate with or without attempted faith healing.

Smith's confidence prevented him from appreciating the possibility of failure. The only thing that lay ahead was planning and building—turning his utopian vision into reality.

In other words, since all good comes from God, and the Book of Mormon tries to persuade humankind to do and be good—be righteous and believe in Christ—it is therefore true and inspired even if, in the final analysis, it is not historical.

In a letter published in the Elders' Journal in July 1838, Smith responded to the question: "Do you believe Joseph Smith, Jr., to be a prophet?" His answer was: "Yes, and every other man who has the testimony of Jesus." He then quoted Revelation 19:10: "For the testimony of Jesus, is the spirit of prophecy

To return to the either/or definition of prophet, Smith could believe himself to be an inspired prophet and the Book of Mormon a true revelation even if it were not ancient history so long as he had a testimony of Jesus and viewed the book as an extension of that testimony.

If we were logical, the future would be bleak indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.

Don't let anyone steal your dream. It's your dream, not theirs.

What one heart finds in Him is so different than what another discovers, yet none less true.

She turned on the radio. Christmas music filled the car. She turned it off with a groan. "It's not going to turn you into an elf if you listen," he promised and liked the smile that played at the corner of her lips, wiggling the small mole that kept drawing his attention. She glanced at him. "Do you believe in Christmas?" "I do," he said without hesitation. "Even after all you've seen and done overseas?" "Especially because of that...

God is the one thing, the only thing, I know is true.

Nothing is over until God says it is.

self-indulgence isn't something to be tolerated. It's a singularly American phenomenon, Dov and Abba believe—the child who thinks the world revolves around him.

If you learn to trust and rely on God completely—even when things look hopeless—He will amaze you every time. The outcome may not be the outcome you pictured or how you would have done it yourself, but in the end it will work out better than you could have hoped for.

I got rid of my teeth at a young age because I'm straight. Teeth are for gay people. That's why fairies come and get them.

In your whole life, only in young childhood, and only if you were very fortunate, could you get a measure of innocence—a time free of knowing what will come, of what must come. Those moments, that simple engagement of only what was wonderful about being alive, that love, really, would be at the center of you forever; deep inside, you would have this tender core that believed everything would be okay.