Because we remember pain and the menace of death more vividly than pleasure, and because our feelings toward the beneficent aspects of the unknown have from the first been captured and formalised by conventional religious rituals, it has fallen to the lot of the darker and more maleficent side of cosmic mystery to figure chiefly in our popular supernatural folklore.
I have come to the conclusion that whether or not a person is a religious believer does not matter. Far more important is that they be a good human being.
We think of faith as a source of comfort and understanding but find our expressions of faith sowing division; we believe ourselves to be a tolerant people even as racial, religious, and cultural tensions roil the landscape. And instead of resolving these tensions or mediating these conflicts, our politics fans them, exploits them,and drives us further apart.
Never for a moment have I had one doubt about my religious beliefs. There are people who believe only so far as they can understand--that seems to me presumptuous and sets their understanding as the standard of the universe.
While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to win new followers for their doctrine- an activity which can boast but very modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in particular- right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who either are alien to all religious life or simply go their own ways. The consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are not favorable.
Remembering that Peter denied his Lord with an oath, after most solemnly protesting that he never would, I will not swear I will make no committals; but I do think I will not.
While it is true that science, to the extent of its grasp of causative connections, may reach important conclusions as to the compatibility and incompatibility of goals and evaluations, the independent and fundamental definitions regarding goals and values remain beyond science's reach.
For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: 'Lord, make us free!' is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: 'Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!"
I think you can judge from somebody's actions a kind of a stability and sense of purpose perhaps created by strong religious roots. I mean, there's a certain patience, a certain discipline, I think, that religion helps you achieve.
We accepted this war for an object, a worthy object, and the war will end when that object is attained. Under God, I hope it never will until that time.
I've got a group who can't play music, one bad comedian plus boyfriend, a nervous breakdown calling himself a magician, two coachloads of 70-year-old religious maniacs looking for a fight and a fancy-dress contest that nobody knew about.
Sometimes religion becomes yet another source for more division and even open conflict. Because of that situation, I feel the different religious traditions have a great responsibility to provide peace of mind and a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood among humanity.
Be moral. Be brave. Be a heart-whole man, strictly moral, brave unto desperation. Don't bother your head with religious theories. Cowards only sin, brave men never, no, not even in mind.