Best 8213 quotes in «religion quotes» category

Whatever your situation, there exist hope

What had been a region of model farming became almost a desert, for more than half the population was exiled or sent to concentration camps. The young people left the villages, the boys to go to the factories if they could get jobs, or to become vagabonds if they couldn’t. *** An echo of the tragic fate of Russia’s German Protestant population reached the world when the Mennonites flocked to Moscow and sought permission to leave the country. Some of these Germans had tried to obey the government and had formed collective farms, only to have them liquidated as Kulak collectives. Being first-class farmers, they had committed the crime of making even a Kolkhoz productive and prosperous. Others had quite simply been expropriated from their individual holdings. All were in despair. Few were allowed to leave Russia. They were sent to Siberia to die, or herded into slave labor concentration camps. The crime of being good farmers was unforgivable, and they must suffer for this sin. *** Cheat or be cheated, bully or be bullied, was the law of life. Only the German minority with their strong religious and moral sense—the individual morality of the Protestant as opposed to the mass subservience demanded by the Greek Orthodox Church and the Soviet Government—retained their culture and even some courage under Stalin’s Terror.

What good is praying in public if you as an individual do not follow The Teachings of GOD'S Prophets in The Holy Bible ? Repent !

What goes around comes around" "the word you are looking is (Karma)meaning what bad you have done to someone else. Be careful it will come back in another way at its own time and you wont even realize it.

What good is faith if it causes pain for another? What good is religion if it does no good? What good is any belief that leads to hate?

What has God called a religion? Renunciation is not religion. To be free of anger-pride-deceit-greed (kashays) is religion; or to have feeble (tamed) kashays is religion. That’s all. Only these two are religion.

What he realised, and more clearly as time went on, was that money-worship has been elevated into a religion. Perhaps it is the only real religion-the only felt religion-that is left to us. Money is what God used to be. Good and evil have no meaning any longer except failure and success. Hence the profoundly significant phrase, to make good. The decalogue has been reduced to two commandments. One for the employers-the elect, the money priesthood as it were- 'Thou shalt make money'; the other for the employed- the slaves and underlings'- 'Thou shalt not lose thy job.' It was about this time that he came across The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and read about the starving carpenter who pawns everything but sticks to his aspidistra. The aspidistra became a sort of symbol for Gordon after that. The aspidistra, the flower of England! It ought to be on our coat of arms instead of the lion and the unicorn. There will be no revolution in England while there are aspidistras in the windows.

What?' He cried, darting at him a look of fury: 'Dare you still implore the Eternal's mercy? Would you feign penitence, and again act an Hypocrite's part? Villain, resign your hopes of pardon. Thus I secure my prey!' As He said this, darting his talons into the Monk's shaven crown, He sprang with him from the rock. The Caves and mountains rang with Ambrosio's shrieks. The Daemon continued to soar aloft, till reaching a dreadful height, He released the sufferer. Headlong fell the Monk through the airy waste; The sharp point of a rock received him; and He rolled from precipice to precipice, till bruised and mangled He rested on the river's banks. Life still existed in his miserable frame: He attempted in vain to raise himself; His broken and dislocated limbs refused to perform their office, nor was He able to quit the spot where He had first fallen. The Sun now rose above the horizon; Its scorching beams darted full upon the head of the expiring Sinner. Myriads of insects were called forth by the warmth; They drank the blood which trickled from Ambrosio's wounds; He had no power to drive them from him, and they fastened upon his sores, darted their stings into his body, covered him with their multitudes, and inflicted on him tortures the most exquisite and insupportable. The Eagles of the rock tore his flesh piecemeal, and dug out his eyeballs with their crooked beaks. A burning thirst tormented him; He heard the river's murmur as it rolled beside him, but strove in vain to drag himself towards the sound. Blind, maimed, helpless, and despairing, venting his rage in blasphemy and curses, execrating his existence, yet dreading the arrival of death destined to yield him up to greater torments, six miserable days did the Villain languish. On the Seventh a violent storm arose: The winds in fury rent up rocks and forests: The sky was now black with clouds, now sheeted with fire: The rain fell in torrents; It swelled the stream; The waves overflowed their banks; They reached the spot where Ambrosio lay, and when they abated carried with them into the river the Corse of the despairing Monk.

What I am doing is not giving religion respect that it wants but it doesn't deserve. I respect people; I respect humans. I do not respect religion. And I do not respect the idea that religion deserves respect. ["Atheist organizer takes ‘movement’ to nation’s capital", Belief Blog (CNN), 23 March 2012]

What if acceptance and compassion were our daily practice and religion?

What," "how," "when," etc are all questions more or less common to religion and philosophy. But to ask "why" is a transgression in religion, and this inquiry has undoubtedly taken the heaviest tolls on intellect.

What if we saw the mediocre talk, the overbearing counselor, the lesson read straight from the manual, as a lay member’s equivalent of the widow’s mite? A humble offering, perhaps, but one to be measured in terms of the capacity of the giver rather than in the value received. … If that sounds too idealistic, if we insist on imposing a higher standard on our co-worshippers, if we insist on measuring our worship service in terms of what we “get out of” the meeting, then perhaps we have erred in the our understanding of worship. … Worship is about what we are prepared to relinquish—what we give up at personal cost.

What I meant was that in the old days, it was the Holy Ghost, le saint esprit in French, in whom the Christians believed, claiming that it provided guidance and protection for the Church and Christian life. Now, they have taken out le saint esprit and they have put in its place instead l’esprit du temps, the spirit of the times, which in a sense is now our master. We are in a deep sense slaves to this ‘‘spirit.’’ We have absolutized time, although this is philosophically absurd, and now we search how we should accommodate ourselves and even our religion to this way of thinking. I am totally opposed to this point of view, and I have stood like a firm tree against a storm during over fifty years of writing on this sub- ject. I have stood for the principle that it is we who must make the times in accordance with our sacred traditions.

What I know about you, Henry,” he said. “Is that you, as big as you are, know how to walk gently on this earth.

What is a ritual? When an enlightened person (Gnani Purush) is not around, when a leader of the path of Moksha (ultimate liberation) is not around, rituals will prevent one from slipping. It is good action. Ritual is not a wrong thing. But in this time era, the root has not been present. All wrong beliefs have set in.

What is considered as a vow (vrat)? For this Dada [Gnani Purush], the five mahavrats (great vows of truth, non-possessiveness, non-violence, non-stealing, and celibacy as expounded by Lord Mahavir) prevail at all times! He lives in wordly life yet He prevails in the mahavrats, what must that be like? One in whom pudgal pariniti (the belief that 'I am doing' in what are the results of the non-Self) does not arise at all! Where there is mahavrat, there is no pudgal pariniti. And where there is anuvrat (observance of minor religious vows), there to a certain extent, pudgal pariniti is present and to certain extent, it has also decreased!

What Is A Belief?

What is cancer, he thought to himself, if not a terrorist attack from above? What is it that God is doing, if not terrorizing us in protest against...something. Something so lofty and transcendental that it is beyond our grasp?

What is Religion according to you? “Religion is your idea of leading life, the value you not only hold close to your heart but ones that you practice, the passions in your life, the faith in your ideals, the vision you have for your life and the society around you.

What is religion? A cloud in the sky. I live in the sky, not in the clouds, which are so many words held together. Remove the verbiage and what remains? Truth remains.

What is my strength, that I should hope? Is my strength the strength of stone? Or is my flesh of brass? Is not my help in me.

What is sacredness? What is true is sacred. What has been suffered. What is beautiful. So the Telling tries to find the truth in events or the pain, or the beauty? No need to try to find it, said Unroy. The sacredness is there. In the truth, the pain, the beauty. So that the telling of it is sacred.

What is satya (truth)? When no living being is hurt through speech, is not hurt through conduct or one does not think any thing bad for the other person; it is the greatest truth. It is the greatest principle! It is not the ‘real’ truth. It is the ultimate ‘worldly truth’ (vyavahar satya).

What is more precious: a thousand answers derived from one question? Or, one answer…from a thousand questions?

What is seen is not the Truth What is cannot be said Trust comes not without seeing Nor understanding without words The wise comprehends with knowledge To the ignorant it is but a wonder Some worship the formless God Some worship his various forms In what way He is beyond these attributes Only the Knower knows That music cannot be written How can then be the notes Say Kabir, awareness alone will overcome illusion.

What is the world? What is it for? It is an art. It is the best of all possible art, a finite picture of the infinite. Assess it like prose, like poetry, like architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, delta blues, opera, tragedy, comedy, romance, epic. Assess it like you would a Faberge egg, like a gunfight, like a musical, like a snowflake, like a death, a birth, a triumph, a love story, a tornado, a smile, a heartbreak, a sweater, a hunger pain, a desire, a fufillment, a desert, a waterfall, a song, a race, a frog, a play, a song, a marriage, a consummation, a thirst quenched. Assess it like that. And when you're done, find an ant and have him assess the cathedrals of Europe.

What is the rule of God? He does not bind the one who wants to become free, and the one who wants to be bound, He never lets him go.

What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we're blue.

What is the ‘fruit’ (reward) of ‘relative religion’? It is merit karma; not liberation.

What is the meaning of life? What is our purpose on earth? These are some of the great, false questions of religion. We need not answer them, for they are badly posed, but we can live our answers all the same. At a minimum, we can create the conditions for human flourishing in this life--the only life of which any of us can be certain. That means we should not terrify our children with thoughts of hell or poison them with hatred for infidels. We should not teach our sons to consider women their future property or convince our daughters that they are property even now. And we must decline to tell our children that human history began with bloody magic and will end with bloody magic in a glorious war between the righteous and the rest.

What is the nature of the worldly life (sansar)? God lives in every living being of the world, that means if you oppress any living being or cause misery to them, then adharma (unrighteousness, irreligion) will occur. The result (effect) of adharma will be against your desires and the result of dharma (righteousness, religion) will be favorable to your desires.

What kind of God is it who's upset by a cartoon in Danish?" [Interview with Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason, June 23, 2006]

What Joab did not and could not know was that it was ego, and the ego of a king is just like the ego of anyone else. It is a social infection, entering each person as a psychological virus that is passed on by their parents’ egos and other social stimuli. It is born of negativity—of not being good enough thoughts of not having enough, of fear, and worry of failure. Because of its insecure nature, the ego loves to dominate and control others. It’s control or be controlled.

What I want from the church, or any faith community, I see now, is a look between human beings that says we are knitted together, standing in a circle, holding each other up, waiting for the next ax to fall, rather than persons following a crowned Jesus, believing in an oppressive creed and tinny, false hope. That "religion" is about wanting the thing to last forever and make the pain go away. The reality is, instead, more about Jesus kneeling in the dust making a paste of spit and dirt. The reality is much more raw.

What is truly arresting about our kind is better captured in the story of the Tower of Babel, in which humanity, speaking a single language, came so close to reaching heaven that God himself felt threatened.

What I want to tell you as you read these stories is that I both found and lost God a hundred times over. In fact, maybe I've never actually found God at all, but imagining that I have indeed found something so much larger and more beautiful than I can explain is more often enough for me.

What man is able to do that, that thou should ask such things of me?

What millions believe is often just fairy tales for children! The fabrications of the past are ridiculously accepted as the holies of people! Glory lies in searching the truth not in believing the irrational legends!

What people really believe doesn't feel like a BELIEF, it feels like the way the world IS.

What seems at first a cup of sorrow is found in the end immortal wine.

What science does not understand is called psychology, what psychology does not understand is called religion, what religion does not understand is called spirituality, what spirituality does not understand is called creation, what creation does not understand is called life, what life does not understand is called the death. There is nothing that the death does not understand—simply, it is an ultimate end of life.

What prompts alarm in me is how you and your government want to ruin not only the potential of this of this country, but also the path of those who are going to transition into more advanced beings in search of immortality and omnipotence, and maybe even participate in a great singularity. These advances are going to pass, one way or another. And your current second-rate moral system—your weak, pretend-God-will-take-care-of-us bullshit—is a waste for our species' possibilities. You people want to pretend that democracy, religious inspiration, and unbridled consumerism are going to last forever and carry us all to bliss; that the American Dream is right around the next corner for everyone. you spend hundreds of billions of dollars on lazy welfare recipients, on mentally challenged people, on uneducated repeat criminals, on obese second-rate citizens bankrupting our medical system, on murderous war machines fighting for oil and your oligarchy's pet projects in far off places. All so you maintain your puny forms of power and sleep better at night.

What rubbish, mon père. Does he think God actually answers prayers? God has no time to listen to petty grievances. Did he think that God would drop everything to look into his little life? Did he hope for divine intervention every time something went wrong? You see, this is the problem, mon père. People take things too literally. They expect the universe to revolve around their little preoccupations. They have no sense of the scale of things, no sense of their own insignificance. So God didn’t answer your prayers? Do not imagine you are alone. God doesn’t care that you are alone, or that you are suffering. If God made the stars, then why would He care whether or not you fast for Lent, or whether you drink alcohol, or even if you live or die—

What seems like the right thing to do could also be the hardest thing you have ever done in your life

What's to rationalize? You mean you shouldn't pray if you haven't got your s--t together? This is another fairly common misconception of faith, which is that people who go to church, or people who pray, or people who talk about their religion must be, somehow more pious or ethically rigorous or have more morally cleansed lifestyle. The high correlation is supposed to be between faith and your search, the depth of your search, your willingness to try, your willingness to admit error, your hope and belief in the ultimate meaning and value of that search.' - Timothy Shriver

What stops artadhyan (mournful contemplation hurting the self) and raudradhyan (wrathful contemplation hurting the self and others) is dharma (Religion of the Self). What keeps them alive is adharma (Non-Religion of the Self).

What struck me, in reading the reports from Sri Lanka, was the mild disgrace of belonging to our imperfectly evolved species in the first place. People who had just seen their neighbors swept away would tell the reporters that they knew a judgment had been coming, because the Christians had used alcohol and meat at Christmas or because ... well, yet again you can fill in the blanks for yourself. It was interesting, though, to notice that the Buddhists were often the worst. Contentedly patting an image of the chubby lord on her fencepost, a woman told the New York Times that those who were not similarly protected had been erased, while her house was still standing. There were enough such comments, almost identically phrased, to make it seem certain that the Buddhist authorities had been promulgating this consoling and insane and nasty view. That would not surprise me.

What’s wrong with being naked?” --Zeena Schreck on AMLA to Christian Minister Jerry Johnston

What terrifies you most in purity, I asked? Haste, William answered. -- The Name of the Rose, Fifth Day, Nones

What's the good of a philosophy with a major premise that isn't the rationalization of your feelings? If you've never had a religious experience, it's folly to believe in God. You might as well believe in the excellence of oysters, when you can't eat them without being sick.