Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Alec Ryrie

Quote by Alec Ryrie

“The plainest case is that of Ludovic Muggleton, best known for eventually founding the eccentric ‘Muggletonian’ sect. In the religious turbulence of 1640s London, he moved fretfully from church to church, increasingly convinced that ‘I must needs go to Hell’. And so, as the only escape, he longed ‘to have said in my Heart, sure there is no God’. He could not quite persuade himself it was true, but he did the next best thing. Since he was convinced he was damned, he withdrew from any kind of religious practice, and tried simply to live virtuously on his own terms. It would not save his soul, but it would spare him the misery of continuously contemplating his future torment. ‘I found more Peace here than in all my Religion.’ In particular, a hope crept up on him: even if there is a God, perhaps there is no immortal soul? ‘I was in good Hope at that time, that there was nothing after Death.’ He developed arguments to persuade himself of this, and for three years ‘had a great deal of peace of mind in this condition’. ‘I dreaded the Thoughts of Eternity … I thought, if I could but lie still in the earth for ever, it would be as well with me, as it would be if I were in eternal happiness … I cared not for Heaven so I might not go to Hell.”

Quote by Alec Ryrie

Book:Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt
Create image

Work

Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Alec Ryrie

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Alec Ryrie. more

You May Also Like

“You see in death a separation. But death also connects us. It is our one common destination. That is why we gather, many of us who would never connect otherwise. It's not just to say goodbye to the departed. Let's be honest, it's too late for that anyway. No, we are not just here to say goodbyes, but to say hello. Hello to friends and family who we have neglected. Now we huddle and outwardly share memories, while internally we all ponder the fragility of our own mortality.”

LifeDeathHeavenExistenceHellEternityFuneralLiving Life To The Fullest
Author:Nate Hamon
Create image

“In the outer layers of young stars life nearly always appears not only in the normal manner but also in the form of parasites, minute independent organisms of fire, often no bigger than a cloud in the terrestrial air, but sometimes as large as the Earth itself. These "salamanders" either feed upon the welling energies of the star in the same manner as the star's own organic tissues feed, or simply prey upon those tissues themselves. Here as elsewhere the laws of biological evolution come into force, and in time there may appear races of intelligent flame-like beings. Even when the salamandrian life does not reach this level, its effect on the star's tissues may become evident to the star as a disease of its skin and sense organs, or even of its deeper tissues. It then experiences emotions not wholly unlike human fright and shame, and anxiously and most humanly guards its secret from the telepathic reach of its fellows. The salamandrian races have never been able to gain mastery over their fiery worlds. Many of them succumb, soon or late, either to some natural disaster or to internecine strife or to the self-cleansing activities of their mighty host. Many others survive, but in a relatively harmless state, troubling their stars only with a mild irritation, and a faint shade of insincerity in all their dealings with one another. In the public culture of the stars the salamandrian pest was completely ignored. Each star believed itself to be the only sufferer and the only sinner in the galaxy. One indirect effect the pest did have on stellar thought. It introduced the idea of purity. Each star prized the perfection of the stellar community all the more by reason of its own secret experience of impurity.”

SoulSpiritualityHeavenSinFirePurityStarSalamander
Book:Star Maker
Create image