Faith, Spirituality and Religion

The great world’s altar-stairs, That slope through darkness up to God.

 

Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before.

 

Believing where we cannot prove.

 

There are three lessons I would write, Three words as with a burning pen, In tracings of eternal light Upon the hearts of men.

 

Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest: To give and not to count the cost; To fight and not to heed the wounds; To toil and not to seek for rest; To labor and not ask for any reward Save that of knowing that we do Thy will.

 

Love is he, radiant with great splendor, And speaks to us of Thee, O Most High.

 

Praise to thee, my Lord, for all thy creatures, Above all Brother Sun Who brings us the day and lends us his light.

 

To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die.

It is sad. One half of the world does not believe in God, and the other half does not believe in me.

Prayer must never be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer, and becomes a correspondence.

’Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.

You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernaturalaid I would hardly be a human being.

Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me.

We Bokonists believe that humanity isorganized into teams, teams that do God’s Will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a karass by Bokonon.

If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of tyranny; if there weretwo, they would cut each other’s throats; butthere are thirty, and they live happily togetherin peace.

Geniumque loci primamque deorum

God made man, without man’s consent, andmade his nature, too; made it vicious instead of angelic, and then said, Be angelic, or I will punish you and destroy you. But no matter, God is responsible for everything man does, all the same; He can’t get around that fact.There is only one Criminal, and it is not man.

[Christian nations are the most enlightenedand progressive] in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetics in child-birth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve.

[ On the Bible :] It is full of interest. It hasnoble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.

There is no God, no universe, no humanrace, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought —a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlornamong the empty eternities!

Let me make the superstitions of a nationand I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.

The serene confidence which a Christian feels in four aces.