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Quote by Andrew Greeley

“I have terrible handwriting. I now say it's a learning disability... but a nun who was a very troubled woman hit me over the fingers with a ruler because my writing was so bad.”

Quote by Andrew Greeley

Author

Andrew Greeley, born on February 5, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, was an American Catholic priest, author, and sociologist. His works spanned various fields including novels, non-fiction, sociology, and theology, and he is known for his profound insights into the lives of urban Catholics. more

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“The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it.”

Source: Time Enough for Love

“The nice thing about citing god as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove.”

Religion Nice Prove Authority Nice Things Citing

Book:Revolt in 2100

Source: Revolt in 2100

“Don't appeal to mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he's not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy- live or die- is strictly your business and the universe doesn't care. In fact you may be the universe and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it- 'Thou art God!'”

Men May Littles Art Facts Home Care Faces Religion Dies Universe Father Causes Trouble Sky Divine Mercy Quitting Unhappy Appeals Comrade Little Man Comradeship

Author:Robert A. Heinlein

“He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings, but short words were slippery, unpredictable changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian word - such as grok which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife. And this had been a very short word.”

“The Ten Commandments are for lame brains. The first five are solely for the benefit of the priests and the powers that be; the second five are half truths, neither complete nor adequate.”

Firsts Religion Brain Half Five Ten Benefits Priests Commandments Adequate Lame Ten Commandments Half Truth

Book:To Sail Beyond the Sunset

Source: To Sail Beyond the Sunset

“But I contend that the disgusting behavior of many of their alleged 'holy men' relieves us of any intellectual obligation to take the stuff seriously. No amount of sanctimonious rationalization can make such behavior anything but pathological.”

Men Religion Stuff Amount Holy Behavior Intellectual Obligation Disgusting Holy Man Sanctimonious

Author:Robert A. Heinlein

“Possession of books denounced as heretical was made a criminal offense. Copies of such books were burned and destroyed. But in Upper Egypt, someone, possibly a monk from a nearby monastery of St Pachomius, took the banned books and hid them from destruction - in the jar where they remained buried for almost 1,600 years.”

Years Made Book Religion Destruction Possession Criminals Destroyed Copies Buried Burned Offense Egypt Monk Jars Banned Monasteries Banned Books

Book:The Gnostic Gospels

Source: The Gnostic Gospels

“Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it, actually may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the first and second centuries. For nearly all Christians since that time, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic premises. First, they accept the canon of the New Testament; second, they confess the apostolic creed; and third, they affirm specific forms of church institution. But every one of these - the canon of Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure - emerged in its present form only toward the end of the second century.”

“The efforts of the majority to destroy every trace of heretical 'blasphemy' proved so successful that, until the discoveries at Nag Hammadi, nearly all our information concerning alternative forms of early Christianity came from the massive orthodox attacks upon them.”

Form Religion Effort Christianity Successful Information Discovery Majority Alternatives Orthodox Massive Blasphemy

Book:The Gnostic Gospels

Source: The Gnostic Gospels

“Why did the consensus of Christian churches not only accept these astonishing views but establish them as the only true form of Christian doctrine? . . . these religious debates - questions of the nature of God, or of Christ - simultaneously bear social and political implications that are crucial to the development of Christianity as an institutional religion. In simplest terms, ideas which bear implications contrary to that development come to be labeled as 'heresy'; ideas which implicitly support it become 'orthodox.'”