Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
God,
Religion, Spirituality
- "The great end in religious
instruction, is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own; not to
make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own; not to
give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth;
not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs; not to bind them by
ineradicable prejudices to our particular sect or peculiar notions, but to prepare them
for impartial, conscientious judging of whatever subjects may be offered to their
decision; not to burden memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of
thought..."
William Channing, A Chosen Faith
- Calvin & Hobbes
cartoon:
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never
incinerated by bolts of lightning."
- Religion
through the eyes of children, The National Review, 1996-Dec-31:
- "The
seventh commandment is 'thou shalt not admit adultery.'"
"Paul preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage."
"One of the opossums was St. Matthew."
"Joshua led the Hebrews in the battle of Geritol."
"Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption."
"A Christian should have only one wife. This is called monotony."
"The Jews had trouble throughout their history with the unsympathetic Genitals."
"Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night."
"Moses went to the top of Mt. Cyanide to get the 10 commandments."
"Unleavened bread is bread made without ingredients."
"Solomon had 300 wives and 700 porcupines."
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Jesus became God in
381 C.E.
- that's the year that the "church
fathers," one group of them
at least, mafia-like, finally succeeded
in excommunicating and, whenever possible, murdering their opposition. The process took close to 200 years
with the "Jesus as Man but not God" faction leading the controversy much of the
time. They eventually lost. The circumstances surrounding the
final doctrinal decision, one that would frame and define
ensuing Christianity for thousands of years, were not pretty
and, upon close inspection by an objective reviewer, would not
inspire confidence in the truth-promotion process. Our
knowledge of the details of that ancient debate is fragmentary
with information scattered over a wide array of sources.
Jewish historian, Dr. Richard E.
Rubenstein, invested 15 years or more tracking down these
various sources and piecing together a picture revealed
to be a tawdry state of corrupt church
politics.
The
stakes were high. Ecclesiastical demagogues knew full well that if they allowed the common
people to view Jesus as a Man who could grow and
develop and progress -- well then, this, of course, was a threat
to the church's power over people -- because if people can
change and grow by themselves and appeal to the Father directly
for help in life, why then, the people will surely conclude, do we
need the church to save us? This book is only for those
who are ready for the truth. Be prepared for
some cognitive dissonance as it will alter your view
of yourself, your view of Jesus, and how you fit into the
divine cosmic plan. I would also
recommend a book by my old professor, Sir Anthony Buzzard,
The Doctrine of the Trinity, Christianity's Self-Inflicted
Wound . Professor Buzzard reveals what the
original languages of the scripture actually say about the nature
of Jesus and why the early church, for the first few
hundred years, saw Jesus as a Man - not as
God! |
- Mahatma
Ghandi:
"If it weren't for Christians, I'd be a Christian."
- Jesse
Ventura, Governor of Minnesota, 1999, in an interview with Playboy:
"Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength
in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's
business."
- Will
Durant, The Age of Faith: "In Constantinople, more Christians were slaughtered by
Christians in the years 342-343 than by all the persecutions by pagans in the history of
Rome."
- William
Shakespeare: "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."
- Chief
Joseph of the Nez Perce (c. 1840-1904): "We
do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God, as the Catholics and
Protestants do."
- Rich Jeni, on reasons for religious wars: "You're basically
killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend."
- Lord Acton: "Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the
passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes."
- Stewart H. Holbrook: "Almost everyone who has read history in
a more than casual manner knows that when the great figure of God appears in a
controversy, the shooting cannot be far off."
- Tom Wolfe: "A cult is a religion with no political
power."
- Voltaire: "If you have two religions in your land, the two
will cut each other's throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in
peace."
- John Heywood: "The nearer to the church, the further from
God."
- Adrian Desmond, Huxley: "Perhaps
the greatest lesson [Huxley] learned from reading Carlyle was that real religion, that
emotive feeling for Truth and Beauty, could flourish in the absence of an idolatrous
theology."
- Emerson: "The religion that is afraid of
science dishonors God and commits suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the
whole of truth, that it legislates and tyrannizes over a village of God's empire, but it
is not the universal immutable law. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism, is thus made
useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion, and making way for
truth."
- Twain: "A man is accepted into church for
what he believes--and turned out for what he knows." "In religion and politics,
people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and
without examination."
- Edward H. Ashment: "I've come to the conclusion that there
can be little or no dialogue between 'proclaimers of truth' (religious and secular
ideologues) and 'discoverers of truth' (empiricists). The former tend to debate,
the latter tend to discuss."
- Adrian Desmond, Huxley: On Huxley encountering natives
on a remote island... "Untouched people; not necessarily noble savages, but
apparently happy ones. They lived in a land of plenty, ready to share their bananas and
guavas and coconuts. They were to be envied for their 'primitive simplicity and
kind-heartedness'. Where was that 'malady of thought' afflicting industrial England?
[Huxley] realized that 'civilization as we call it would be rather a curse than a blessing
to them'. Huxley knew the fate in store for them, slamming the 'mistaken goodness of the Stigginses
of Exeter Hall, who would send missionaries to these men to tell them that they will all
infallibly be damned'."
- Thomas Jefferson: "I
never told my religion nor scrutinize that of another. I never attempted to make a convert
nor wished to change another's creed. I have judged of others' religion by their lives,
for it is from our lives and not from our words that our religion must be read. By the
same test must the world judge me."
- Thomas Jefferson: "In
every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in
alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man
into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for
their purpose."
- Thomas Jefferson:
"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish
religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his
special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing
their oppressors in Church and State."
- Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: "That a
few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a
personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood would be a
miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel!"
- Dalai Lama: "This is my simple religion. There is no need
for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our
temple; the philosophy is kindness."
- Sir Oliver Lodge, Raymond: "To sum up: Let us not
be discouraged by simplicity. Real things are simple. Human conceptions are not altogether
misleading. Our view of the Universe is a partial one but is not an untrue one. Our
knowledge of the conditions of existence is not altogether false--only inadequate... Nor
let us imagine that existence hereafter, removed from these atoms of matter which now both
confuse and manifest it, will be something so wholly remote and different as to be
unimaginable; but let us learn by the testimony of experience--either our own or that of
others--that those who have been, still are; that they care for us and help us; that they,
too, are progressing and learning and working and hoping; that there are grades of
existence, stretching upward and upward to all eternity; and that God
Himself, through His agents and messengers, is continually striving and working and
planning, so as to bring this creation of His through its preparatory labour and pain, and
lead it on to an existence higher and better than anything we have ever known."
- Barry McGuire, Eve of Destruction: "... hate your
next door neighbor -- but don't forget to say 'grace'..."
- Jean Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762: "But I
am mistaken in speaking of a Christian republic; the terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so
favorable to tyranny that it always profits by such a regime. True Christians are
made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much mind; this short life counts for too
little in their eyes."
- Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You, 1893: "But
Christ could certainly not have established the Church. That is, the institution we now
call by that name, for nothing resembling our present conception of the Church -- with its
sacraments, its hierarchy, and especially its claim to infallibility -- is to be found in
Christ's words or in the conception of the men of his time."
- James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, 1784: "The
religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; it
is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate... Who does not see that the
same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may
establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other
Sects? While we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the
Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an
equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has
convinced us."
- Kenneth Woodward, Jan. 13, 2006: "When word went out from
Rome recently that the pope's theological advisers were prepared to abandon the idea of limbo, it was clear that the medieval notion of a place where
unbaptized infants, among others, go was as good as dead... The
Catholic habit is to let outworn theological idioms disappear through benign neglect.
That appears to be what has happened to limbo." [Editor's note: It is ironic
that institutionalized religion throws in the towel on this one (after centuries of
demanding blind obedience) just when a great deal of empirical evidence becomes available
regarding post-death limbo-like states of existence (albeit temporary in nature) for those
of less than sterling character -- see more under the NDE reports.]
- Dr. Leslie D. Weatherhead, The Meaning Of The Cross:
"The worst penalty of sin is that man is separated from
God, his spiritual senses dulled, his spiritual desires lessened. Such separation involves progressive
deterioration of character, which, if unstayed, may indeed involve such a disintegration of personality that the latter ceases
to be recognizable... both our Lord and [Paul] use the word 'dead'
... to describe [this wayward soul]... The words of Jesus about His suffering and death
reveal that He willingly committed Himself to some mighty task, costly to Him beyond our
imagining, but effecting for all men a deliverance beyond their own
power to achieve, and that in doing so He knew Himself to be utterly and completely
one with God the Father." [Editor's note: I have noticed, too often, when
communicating with childhood friends of decades ago, that many of these former bright
sparks of personhood, now, as if walking casualties of the war that is this life, have
lost much of their heart, tragic examples of Weatherhead's "disintegration
of personality." On the positive side, I console myself, for their sakes, in
my newfound knowledge of Universalism, the eventual heartening and resuscitation of every
seemingly lost soul.]
- John Adams: Near the end of his life, the second President
offers a few lines in summation of his spiritual outlook: "Admire and adore the
Author of the telescopic universe, love and esteem the work, do all in your power to
lessen ill, and increase good: but never presume to comprehend."
- Elizabeth Fry, testimony from the Other Side: Fry speaks via Leslie Flint, direct-voice medium:
"... Christ himself had no intention, no desire, to found any religious
organization. This is completely, absolutely, a man-made thing -- which over the
centuries has misled mankind..." read
more here
- Ellen Terry, testimony from the Other Side: Terry speaks via Leslie Flint, direct-voice medium: "I would say that this [life on our side] is the natural life and yours is
the artificial, and that the truly natural life is the spiritual… the material
life is only a pale reflection of the reality... Here there is no
restriction placed upon expansion of expression; here you assimilate knowledge and
experience; here you throw off more and more of the old self and become truly free... It
is the narrow confines of earth which prevent individuals from becoming spiritual beings"
read more
- John Adams, 1780: His leaking ship having made an emergency stop
at El Ferrol; crossing the Pyrenees on mule-back en route 1000 miles to Paris; resting in
a Spanish village; newly-appointed US Ambassador to France, John Adams, records in his
diary: "Nothing [in Spain] appeared rich but the churches,
nobody fat but the clergy... We saw the procession of the Bishop and of all the
Canons, in rich habits of silk, velvet, silver and gold. The Bishop ... spread out his
hands to the people ... [they] prostrated themselves on their knees as he passed. Our guide told us we must do the same, But I contented myself with a bow. The eagle eye of the Bishop did not
fail to observe an upright figure amidst the crowd of prostrate adorers: but no doubt
perceiving in my countenance and air, but especially in my dress, something that was not
Spanish, he concluded I was some travelling heretic and did not
think it worth while to exert his authority to bend my stiff knees."
- Albert Einstein: "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of
truth."
- Editor's
note: The word "lent" comes from
an Anglo Saxon word meaning "lengthen," as in, the days are
getting longer... it will soon be spring! In times past,
this meant that grain bins were nearly empty, having been depleted
by the long winter, and supplies of food were running low. People
at this time of year were cutting back in order to conserve what
was left. But the coming of spring meant that crops would be
planted, with the promise that food might once again be plentiful.
Denying oneself now meant plenty for later. Traditional
Christianity tells us that Lent is a time of denial and giving
something up... but such abstinence was originally based on
necessity... not design... If we choose to abstain from anything
this time of year let it be done in this spirit... abstain from judging others... indulge in God's
view of them... abstain from emphasizing differences... indulge in
tolerance and the unity of all life... abstain from thoughts of
illness... indulge in the healing power of God... abstain from
bitterness... indulge in thoughts of forgiveness... abstain from
hopelessness... indulge in the joy of this present
moment...
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