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S Quotes

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All S Quotes

“Sectarianism is fundamentally poison on the fabric of humanity. But even nonsectarianism mustn't be forced down people's throat against their will, for to do so is to destroy everything that is sweet and civilized about nonsectarianism. Humankind will get there, sooner or later, at its own slow but sure pace - we just need to be patient, while they do.”

“Sections in the bookstore - Books You Haven't Read - Books You Needn't Read - Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading - Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong to the Category of Books Read Before Being Written - Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered - Books You Mean to Read But There Are Others You Must Read First - Books Too Expensive Now and You'll Wait 'Til They're Remaindered - Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback - Books You Can Borrow from Somebody - Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too - Books You've Been Planning to Read for Ages - Books You've Been Hunting for Years Without Success - Books Dealing with Something You're Working on at the Moment - Books You Want to Own So They'll Be Handy Just in Case - Books You Could Put Aside Maybe to Read This Summer - Books You Need to Go with Other Books on Your Shelves - Books That Fill You with Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified - Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time to Re-read - Books You've Always Pretended to Have Read and Now It's Time to Sit Down and Really Read Them”

“Secular ethics relies not on obeying the edicts of this or that god, but rather on a deep appreciation of suffering. For example, secular people abstain from murder not because some ancient book forbids it, but because killing inflicts immense suffering on sentient beings. There is something deeply troubling and dangerous about people who avoid killing just because ‘God says so’. Such people are motivated by obedience rather than compassion, and what will they do if they come to believe that their god commands them to kill heretics, witches, adulterers or foreigners?”

“Secular humanism does not have the essential attributes of a religion: belief in a deity, the wish for some sort of afterlife, sacred dogma or texts, or an absolutist moral creed. Instead, it expresses a philosophical and ethical point of view, and it draws upon the scientific method in formulationg its naturalistic view of the nature.”

“Secular materialism dismisses belief in spiritual reality and the use of imagination as false; it sees beauty as dispensable and subjective, emotion as chemical, imagination (and with it, religion) as fantasy. Ironically, this view increasingly influences the way we live out our faith and speak about God, as apologists seek to argue God's existence on materialism's own terms, using scientific proof–style reasoning, and analytical debate to "prove" the reality of the spiritual world. It filters down to us in a thousand ordinary ways, shaping our models of spiritual growth, lines of productivity or casting faith as an assent to a list of doctrinal statements rather than the renewal of ourselves and stories. It makes us doubt the "usefulness" of beauty or the spiritual purpose of imagination, but this is a profoundly un-Christian view of faith and personhood. To reject image, emotion, and story as peripheral to faith is to ignore the way God created us – as being made in his image to create in our turn, as souls capable of both reason and analysis, but also equally capable of imagination, creativity, and emotion.”