Best 8213 quotes in «religion quotes» category

If I told you to wish for good health, you would think I'm ridiculous; but when I exchange the word "wish" for the word "pray", you believe it can work. That is the disempowering delusion religions have brought us.

If it’s God you’re worried about, the Lord Jesus said that we needn’t keep to the old ways anymore. They had their day years ago.

If it isn't a choice,then it means you must be born a certain way,either gay or straight. If you are born that way,it must mean that god made you that way,which makes it unlikely that he would damn you to hell for it. After all,it would be technically his fault.

If Jesus didn't do it, don't say the Father does. If Jesus did do it, don't say the Father doesn't.

If I want religion, I know where to look for it - and if for example I don't want it, then why should it be forced on me in media and public spaces?

If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks.

I fled Him down the nights and down the days I fled Him down the arches of the years I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears I hid from him, and under running laughter.

If I was meant to be controlled, I would have come with a remote.

If I were to believe in God enough to call him a murderer, then I might also believe enough that he, as a spirit, exists beyond death; and therefore only he could do it righteously. For the physical being kills a man and hatefully sends him away, whereas God, the spiritual being, kills a man and lovingly draws him nigh.

If I was not born as a child clergy, nobles, or knights. So I would be an artist.

If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.

If life is a question, love is the answer.

If man really is fashioned, more than anything else, in the image of God, then clearly it follows that there is nothing on earth so near to God as a human being. The conclusion is inescapable, that to be in the presence of even the meanest, lowest, most repulsive specimen of humanity of the world is still to be closer to God than when looking up into a starry sky or at a beautiful sunset. Certainly that is why there is nothing in the new testament about beautiful sunsets.- Mike Mason -Author of "The Mystery of Marriage

If misery results within you, it is artadhyan (mournful contemplation that hurts one’s own self) and when someone suffers from painful result because of you, it is raudradhyan (wrathful contemplation that hurts the self and others). Giving happiness to someone is dharmadhyan. It is dharmadhyan when one is satisfied despite having less worldly comforts.

If my friend asks me to sit in a temple belonging to a God that I do not know, because he needs a friend to sit with him, I will be happy to sit there in the foreign temple. Because the temple itself is an outer container only. What is the true religion? What is the inner oil contained by that outer container? The inner oil is the friendship I share with my friend. The true religion is being there to sit beside my friend. If I cannot do this for my friend, then how am I worthy to sit in any temple, whether belonging to a God that I know or to a God that I don't know? If there is no inner oil within my soul, I do not deserve to sit in any temple. Religion is the friendship within the heart, not the place where we sit on a holy day. Religion is the oil within the lamp, not the metal container we see as the lamp.

If my mission and my religion have taught me anything, its that faith isn’t just what you believe in; its how you live, how you love, and how you move forward. My faith- and this religion thats been the vehicle for my faith- has played a huge role in my life. Its always been there for me when I needed something to hold on to. At the end of the day, if all religions prove to be wrong, I won’t regret believing, because it has made me a better person and has helped me live my life in such a way that I will never need to be ashamed of any part of it. A set of beliefs that help provide hope, healing, and a meaningful way of life. It really is something quite beautiful and extraordinary.

If my God damns people for love but saves them for brutle warfare, then that is not the God I know or wish to worship.

If my mother's intention in whole or in part was to ensure that I never had to suffer any indignity or embarrassment for being a Jew, then she succeeded well enough. And in any case there were enough intermarriages and 'conversions' on both sides of her line to make me one of those many mischling hybrids who are to be found distributed all over the known world. And, as someone who doesn't really believe that the human species is subdivided by 'race,' let alone that a nation or nationality can be defined by its religion, why should I not let the whole question slide away from me? Why—and then I'll stop asking rhetorical questions—did I at some point resolve that, in whatever tone of voice I was asked 'Are you a Jew?' I would never hear myself deny it?

If one does not make an ego out of gender, one would still know whether one is a man or a woman, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender—whatever else we may think of. But those identities need to fit very loosely and be worn very lightly. All sense of privilege or deprivation that has developed around one’s gender identity, all rigidity regarding proper roles and behaviors for the various genders, must be cut through.

If one billion of you watch and do not intercede as one million of you assent to the one thousand who participate in the murder of a child, then one billion of you are a billion times guilty.

If one thousand of you participate in the murder of one child, then one thousand of you are a thousand times guilty.

If only the morbidly religious cared more about real atrocities, like war, poverty, and sports.

If one million of you give assent to the one thousand who participate in the murder of a child, then one million of you are a million times guilty.

If one shifts the center of gravity of life out of life into the “Beyond” – into nothingness – one has deprived life as such of its center of gravity. The great lie of personal immortality destroys all rationality, all naturalness of instinct, all that is salutary, all that is life-furthering.

If only religion were an opiate. No known narcotic rots the brain so fast.

If only the Saviour had asked me to do something else! But that something else would not have reached your heart. You could have done that other thing without faith and without grace; yes, without even being right with God. So, in asking you to do the one impossible thing, Christ crosses your will through your withered limb (Crowded to Christ, p. 178).

If our value system doesn't allow us to enjoy anything without putting a price on it, we miss a great part of the beauty of life. When we bring this value system into the domain of prayer, we can never enjoy God. As soon as we start enjoying Him, we have to reflect, "Oh boy, I'm enjoying God!" And as soon as we do that, we are taking a photograph of the experience. Every reflection is like a photograph of reality. It isn't our original experience; it is a commentary on it.

I found God. He is not in heaven or in the heart. He is not in the sky nor is he flying high. He is not very big nor gigantic. He is almighty, all powerful, and very beautiful. He lives everywhere in every flower and every little speck of dust. He knows everything you do, and he does everything for you. He can feel every little change and memorize everything…so strange.

if religion lead to heart, it makes a man good human if overgrow in mind it makes a man devil

If religion has set up the proposition that we are sinners altogether, I set over against it the other: we are perfect altogether! For we are, every moment, all that we can be; and we never need be more.

If pharaoh’s gods exist, then the one God is indeed the winner, but monotheism evaporates. If Pharaoh’s gods do not exist, then monotheism is the winner, but the one God with His supposed inconceivable power faces inconceivable ridicule by knowingly choosing to challenge and fight a few priests by proxy (I spare you His cunning battle plan…), And evaporates…

If religion is about the sacred as opposed to the profane, the spirit as opposed to matter, the Creator as opposed to the created, Confucianism plainly does not qualify. But perhaps what we are to learn from this tradition is not that Confucianism is not a religion but that not all religious people parse the sacred and the secular the way Christians do.

{From Luther Burbank's funeral. He was loved until he revealed he was an atheist, then he began to receive death threats. He tried to amiably answer them all, leading to his death} It is impossible to estimate the wealth he has created. It has been generously given to the world. Unlike inventors, in other fields, no patent rights were given him, nor did he seek a monopoly in what he created. Had that been the case, Luther Burbank would have been perhaps the world's richest man. But the world is richer because of him. In this he found joy that no amount of money could give. And so we meet him here today, not in death, but in the only immortal life we positively know--his good deeds, his kindly, simple, life of constructive work and loving service to the whole wide world. These things cannot die. They are cumulative, and the work he has done shall be as nothing to its continuation in the only immortality this brave, unselfish man ever sought, or asked to know. As great as were his contributions to the material wealth of this planet, the ages yet to come, that shall better understand him, will give first place in judging the importance of his work to what he has done for the betterment of human plants and the strength they shall gain, through his courage, to conquer the tares, the thistles and the weeds. Then no more shall we have a mythical God that smells of brimstone and fire; that confuses hate with love; a God that binds up the minds of little children, as other heathen bind up their feet--little children equally helpless to defend their precious right to think and choose and not be chained from the dawn of childhood to the dogmas of the dead. Luther Burbank will rank with the great leaders who have driven heathenish gods back into darkness, forever from this earth. In the orthodox threat of eternal punishment for sin--which he knew was often synonymous with yielding up all liberty and freedom--and in its promise of an immortality, often held out for the sacrifice of all that was dear to life, the right to think, the right to one's mind, the right to choose, he saw nothing but cowardice. He shrank from such ways of thought as a flower from the icy blasts of death. As shown by his work in life, contributing billions of wealth to humanity, with no more return than the maintenance of his own breadline, he was too humble, too unselfish, to be cajoled with dogmatic promises of rewards as a sort of heavenly bribe for righteous conduct here. He knew that the man who fearlessly stands for the right, regardless of the threat of punishment or the promise of reward, was the real man. Rather was he willing to accept eternal sleep, in returning to the elements from whence he came, for in his lexicon change was life. Here he was content to mingle as a part of the whole, as the raindrop from the sea performs its sacred service in watering the land to which it is assigned, that two blades may grow instead of one, and then, its mission ended, goes back to the ocean from whence it came. With such service, with such a life as gardener to the lilies of the field, in his return to the bosoms of infinity, he has not lost himself. There he has found himself, is a part of the cosmic sea of eternal force, eternal energy. And thus he lived and always will live. Thomas Edison, who believes very much as Burbank, once discussed with me immortality. He pointed to the electric light, his invention, saying: 'There lives Tom Edison.' So Luther Burbank lives. He lives forever in the myriad fields of strengthened grain, in the new forms of fruits and flowers, plants, vines, and trees, and above all, the newly watered gardens of the human mind, from whence shall spring human freedom that shall drive out false and brutal gods. The gods are toppling from their thrones. They go before the laughter and the joy of the new childhood of the race, unshackled and unafraid.

If people think honoring pastors means doing everything they say, why don't they honor Jesus the same way?

If religion had never existed, what then, would people have killed for in the name of religion? What would a martyr have died for? What would the masses believe in?

If religion is true, one must believe. And if one chooses not to believe, one’s choice is marked under the category of a refusal, and is thus never really free: it has the duress of a recoil.” With literary belief, however, “one is always free to choose not to believe.” This, Wood argues, is the freedom of literature; it is what constitutes its “reality.

I frowned at him. "Isn't sarcasm the opiate of the masses?" "You're thinking of religion," he replied. "Sarcasm is the Xanax of the morally bereft.

If sickness brought glory God, Jesus would have spread disease, not healed it.

If someone has to recharged their faith everyday, that tells me you never had faith to begin with

If terrorism has no religion then intolerance has no country either

If the chanting in temple would help inner peace, if the preaching in a mosque would address humanity and the choirs in a church would sing songs of universal love, I am not against religions!

If the 4th "dimension" is blocked, which is a kind of cosmic umbrella, through which 5D through 9D and higher are designed to operate in physical realms, being non-physical, then the Devil who controls "the spice" controls everything. It would be easy to continue with the reasons behind death, terrible plague on earth.

If the creation of the Universe was left up to a atheist, we would still have nothing.

If someone talks bad about us, we feel bad. If someone talks good about us we feel good. The question is ,Have we given our remote to others for the way we feel? Live your life in your way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If the most High grant thee to live, thou shall see after the third trumpet that the sun shall suddenly shine again in the night, and the moon thrice in the day:

If the Bible is accurate in its assertions (a generous statement on our part), then we must also observe that anyone who ultimately comes to God does so because God made it happen. But this seems to imply that God makes it happen for some but doesn’t make it happen for others. Why? Is this fair? Is this good? Is this justice? Is this love?

If the only thing wrong with mosques, Lent, chanting, ?Mecca, confession, or reincarnation is that they're not yours- well maybe the problem is "YOU

If the people of this religion are asked about the proof for the soundness of their religion, they flare up, get angry and spill the blood of whoever confronts them with this question. They forbid rational speculation, and strive to kill their adversaries. This is why truth became thoroughly silenced and concealed.

If the Gospel of Judas found in Codex Tchacos can be convincingly identified as being a Coptic translation of the original Greek Gospel of Judas that Bishop Ireneaus mentioned around A.D. 180 in his book, "Against Heresies," it will be an important step in the study of ancient gnosticism. We would have for the first time the chance to trace back the history of Sethian gnosticism to before the time of Irenaeus. This would be a significant gain in our knowledge of early Christianity.

If the number of religious converts who converted during a season of intense suffering is high, then does that mean that the number of religious abstainers who abstained because their life was already satisfying is correspondingly low? If so, does this argue for or against religion’s relevance in the world? If theistic religion is attractive, useful, and remedial only for those broken people in the most dismal of needful situations, then is this truly the work of a God or is it just the human psyche gravitating toward a comforting solution?