Quotes About Priests

Many people have replaced religion with scientism in Western culture. Scientists are the new priests.

the Maya knew the time taken by the moon to orbit the earth. Their estimate of this period was 29.528395 days – extremely close to the true figure of 29.530588 days computed by the finest modern methods.11 The Mayan priests also had in their possession very accurate tables for the prediction of solar and lunar eclipses and were aware that these could occur only within plus or minus eighteen days of the node (when the moon's path crosses the apparent path of the sun).

He (the Emperor) once said of ancient Earth that there were torches, who were the teachers, but also extinguishers, who were the priests.

Once we got closer to the origins of these Eastern practices, we found that the monks and swamis were just as dogmatic and paternalistic, just as literal and conservative in their approach to spirituality as the Christian priests and ministers we were trying to get away from.

Good priests never look for awards and, perversely enough in the clerical culture universe, do not receive many. Like the aged nuns who taught selflessly and nearly anonymously all their lives, these servants of the People of God only get into the papers when their obituaries are printed.

Vampires, like virgins or priests, are things that women believe in. We must never fail to humor them in such matters.

The pope's instruction for priests to forgive may mean, in some cases, the difference between a woman staying in the Catholic Church or leaving for a more understanding and empowering church nearby.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. [Letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July 1816, denouncing the doctrine of the Trinity]

I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God. [Letter to Thomas Law, 13 June 1814]

That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.

The Jewish triple tithe—10 percent to priests and Levites, 10 percent for temple festivals, and 3 1/3 percent for the poor25—came on top of the sales taxes, customs, and annual tribute paid to the Roman government, much of which went to fund its vast military machine.

Environmentalists are Gaia's priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment--carbon chastity--they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by and what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.

History is a cookbook. The tyrants are chefs. The philosophers write menus. The priests are waiters. The military men are bouncers. The singing you hear is the poets washing dishes in the kitchen.

Throughout the Gospel there is a consistent narrative opposition between those representing the symbolic order on the one hand and the poor and marginal on the other: 1. priests (purity) vs. the leprous (1: 41ff.); 2. scribes (debt) vs. the physically disabled (2: 1ff.); 3. Pharisees (debt) vs. the dependent elderly (7: 6ff.); 4. scribes (debt) vs. disenfranchised widows (12: 40).

That had always been the way of the world: Those with intelligence pressed into service by those serving the priests and generals unless the priests and generals were suspicious, at which time, those with well-trained intelligence had to flee for safety.

Imagine all the sadhus and priests of Varanasi. More than all of their devotion put together, that's how much I loved her.

The bishops will govern the Church, the priests will do all the work and the deacons will have all the fun.

'The Moonstone' was all I could have hoped for. A mysterious, cursed jewel, wrested from India, only to be stolen later from a great British mansion. Enigmatic, dangerous priests who follow it across the ocean in hopes of wresting it back.

The FBI had been a man's world—usually men of Irish or Italian heritage schooled by Jesuits and raised in a closed culture of police and priests.

The goal of tattooing was never beauty. The goal was change. From the scarified Nubian priests of 2000 B.C., to the tattooed acolytes of the Cybele cult of ancient Rome, to the moko scars of the modern Maori, humans have tattooed themselves as a way of offering up their bodies in partial sacrifice, enduring the physical pain of embellishment and emerging changed beings.

In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies of liberty.

Christianity must be divine since it has lasted 1,700 years despite the fact that it is so full of villainy and nonsense. [Voltaire] shows how almost all ancient peoples had similar myths, and hastily concludes that the myths are thereby proved to have been the inventions of priests: the first divine was the first rogue who met the first fool.

Christianity must be divine," he says, in one of his most unmeasured sallies, "since it has lasted 1,700 years despite the fact that it is so full of villainy and nonsense."79 He shows how almost all ancient peoples had similar myths, and hastily concludes that the myths are thereby proved to have been the inventions of priests: "the first divine was the first rogue who met the first fool.

The Garden of Love I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door; So I turn'd to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore. And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.