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Ronald Reagan: "Without God, there is no virtue, because
there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the
material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive.
Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God,
democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one
nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under." 3 |
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Jules Renard: "I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't." |
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Jean Paul Richter: "God is an unutterable sigh, planted in the depths of the soul." |
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Rainer Maria Rilke: "When I saw others straining toward God, I did not understand it, for though I may have had him less than they did, there was no one blocking the way between him and me, and I could reach his heart easily. It is up to him, after all, to have us, our part consists of almost solely in letting him grasp us." From: Rilke and Benvenuta: An Intimate Correspondence. |
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Brian Robertson:
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Diana Robinson: "Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God." |
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Christina Rossetti: "Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts and no one to thank." |
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Rumi, a mystic in the Sufi tradition of Islam: "I looked for God. I went to a temple and I didn't find him there. Then I went to a church and I didn't find him there. The I went to a mosque and I didn't find him there. Then finally I looked in my heart and there he was." |
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George Santayana: "Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known maxim of Bacon's that 'a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.' At the same time, when Bacon penned that sage epigram... he forgot to add that the God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them." |
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Erik Satie: "Why attack God? He may be as miserable as we are." |
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"Setarcos'" posting to an Amazon.com chat: When asked: "I
am a religious person but I like to hear people's reasons for not believing
in God," Setarcos answered: "Is 'which one?' a good enough answer?" |
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Dorothea Soelle: "God has no other hands than ours. If the
sick are to be healed, it is our hands that will heal them. If the
lonely and the frightened are to be comforted, it is our embrace, not
God's, that will comfort them." |
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John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal bishop:
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George A. Staffa: "Beware of 'God of the Gaps', the Incredible Shrinking Deity who fills the
gaps in our understanding until understanding shrinks both gaps and God down to nothing." |
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Mother Teresa: "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much." |
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Teresa of Avila: "The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too." |
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Mark Twain: "God: The most popular scapegoat for our sins. ." |
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Voltaire:
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UCADIA web site: "...the image of a deity capable to
intervening to stop evil but choosing not to act is probably a worse concept
than an impotent God that can do nothing." 4 |
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James Watson (co-discoverer of the structure of DNA): "Every
time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing
genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held
traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be
ours." 5 |
Bill Watterson: His "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip features Calvin, a 6-year-old boy with profound thoughts, accompanied by his stuffed tiger playmate "Hobbes." "The pair are named after John Calvin, a 16th-century French Reformation theologian, and Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century English political philosopher. The text for the 1987-DEC-21 strip runs:
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Steven Weinberg: "I don't need to argue
here that the evil in the world proves that the universe is not designed,
but only that there are no signs of benevolence that might have shown the
hand of a designer. But in fact the perception that God cannot be benevolent
is very old. Plays by Aeschylus and Euripides make a quite explicit
statement that the gods are selfish and cruel, though they expect better
behavior from humans. God in the Old Testament tells us to bash the heads of
infidels and demands of us that we be willing to sacrifice our children's
lives at His orders, and the God of traditional Christianity and Islam damns
us for eternity if we do not worship him in the right manner. Is this a nice
way to behave? I know, I know, we are not supposed to judge God according to
human standards, but you see the problem here: If we are not yet convinced
of His existence, and are looking for signs of His benevolence, then what
other standards can we use?" 6 |
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Alfred North Whitehead: "Apart from God every activity is merely a passing whiff of insignificance." |
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Frank Lloyd Wright: "I believe in God, only I spell it Nature." 5 |
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Edward Young: "By night, an atheist half believes in God." From Night Thoughts |
References used:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
- Gene Johnson, "Iraq war, gas line God's will, Palin said," Associate Press, 2008-SEP-04, at: http://www.adn.com/
- Video clip from Sarah Palin's speech. YouTube, at: http://www.youtube.com/
- Quoted in the Massachusetts Family Institute's E-Alert for 2004-JUL-09.
- "The Existence of God," UCADIA.com, at: http://www.ucadia.com/
- Roger Highfield, "DNA pioneers lash out at religion," London Daily Telegraph, 2003-MAR-24, at: http://washingtontimes.com/
- Steven Weinbert, "A Designer Universe."
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Copyright © 1996 to 2011 by Ontario
Consultants on Religious Tolerance.
Copyrights for the individual quotations held by their creators
Last updated and reviewed: 2011-DEC-19
Compiled by: B.A. Robinson
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