Quotes About Beliefs

The same thing I live for are the same things I would die for.

As long as Christianity is the dominant belief system in America, we cannot afford to be biblically or theologically illiterate, regardless of our personal beliefs. (p. 8)

If citizenship is a matter of shared beliefs, then I believe in the democracy of species. If citizenship means an oath of loyalty to a leader, then I choose the leader of the trees. If good citizens agree to uphold the laws of the nation, then I choose natural law, the law of reciprocity, of regeneration, of mutual flourishing.

To identify faith with the holding of a certain number of beliefs that come to us from the distant past actually makes a mockery of Christian faith and reduces it to the schoolboy's definition: "Faith is believing things you know ain't true".

A book, to me, is almost sacrosanct: such an individual and private thing. The reader brings his or her own history and beliefs and concerns, and reads in solitude, creating each scene from his own imagination as he does. There is no fellow ticket-holder in the next seat.

They looked at her quizzically, came at her with assumptions, presumptions, what they believed was intimate knowledge of her. She felt unarmed, by comparison; disadvantaged.

And science is about facts, and morality is about values. They are not the same thing and they don't grow together. No one can find a value on the slide of a microscope.

The first causalities of a religion are the intentions of its founder

There was much to learn of people, much to learn of the art of government, which had suddenly become my responsibility. I had already learned to listen to the advice of others but to act only on my own beliefs, and to make my own decisions.

Holmes writes, "…I also would fight for some things—but instead of saying that they ought to be I merely say they are part of the kind of world that I like—or should like.

For Peirce, inquiry is always communal—it is the median of many observations that gives the position of the star—and the last analysis really is the last. In Peirce's cosmology, everyone's beliefs have to be the same in the end, because all opinion must converge.

The world is a stage we walk upon. We are all in a way fictional characters who write ourselves with our beliefs.

But people don't change their beliefs easily. Even when their deepest convictions are challenged - by the failure of the world to end, for example - they continue on their way, sticking to the old routine: they get back on their weird bikes and ride again.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root... Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.

The heart of their [Walsingham Witnesses] religion seemed to lie in disproving the religion of others.

In addition to all that, a man may have any opinions he likes without that being any of the sovereign's business. Having no standing in the other world, the sovereign has no concern with what may lie in wait for its subjects in the life to come, provided they are good citizens in this life.

If the old religion could no longer answer the questions of the children then perhaps it was time to change it.

Every man is entitled to his own religious opinions; but no man – least of all a junior – has a right to thrust these down other men's throats

No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking.

Shame cultures therefore do not provide for confessions, even to the gods. They have ceremonies for good luck rather than for expiation.

Mille poolest kultuurid üksteisest erinevad? Esmajoones tavade poolest. Ütle mulle, kuidas sa riietud, kuidas käitud, missugusi kombeid jälgid, missuguseid jumalaid kummardad, ja ma ütlen sulle, kes sa oled. Inimene mitte ainult ei loo kultuuri ega ela selles, inimene kannab kultuuri endas, inimene ongi kultuur.

We create our gods based on the stage of development we are at in matters of ethics, morals and spirituality.

All liberty required was that the space for discourse itself be protected. Liberty lay in the argument itself, not the resolution of that argument, in the ability to quarrel, even with the most cherished beliefs of others; a free society was not placid but turbulent. The bazaar of conflicting was the place where freedom rang.

What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody's beliefs, we evaluate their reasons.