“I heard the bells from the future churches, the children playing and laughing in the schoolyards [...] and here was an almond tree in bloom before me: I must reach out and cut a flowering branch. For, by believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired, whatever we have not irrigated with our blood to such a degree that it becomes strong enough to stride across the somber threshold of nonexistence.” BelieveChildrenDoeStillsEnoughStrongChurchLaughingCuttingHeardTreeBloodDegreesBranchesReach OutBellsStrong EnoughThresholdStrideFloweringChildren PlayingSomberAlmonds Author:Nikos Kazantzakis
“During the ages of faith the Church argued, not illogically, that any degree of cruelty towards sinners and heretics was justified, if there was a chance that it could save them, or others, from the eternal torments of hell. Thus, in the name of the religion of love, hundreds of thousands of people were not merely killed but atrociously tortured in ways that made the gas chambers of Beslen seem humane.” PeopleIfsWayMadeSeemsAgeNamesChurchChanceHellAtheismDegreesEternalPositive AtheismCrueltyGasSinnerTormentJustifiedChamberHumaneHereticGas Chambers Author:Margaret E. Knight
“We grow up as natural optimists as Americans. Catholic priests were so hopeful as we watched the Vatican II experience. Yet, it's a punch in the belly to see what has happened in the church and the world. Dualistic thinking seems to have taken over the church and our politics to a really neurotic degree.” ThinkingWorldSeemsGrowsNaturalChurchGrowing UpTakenHappenedDegreesCatholicHopefulPriestsOptimistBellyNeuroticVatican Ii Author:Richard Rohr
“I believe there is no liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety, than the Common Prayer of the Church of England. And though the main of it was compiled considerably more than two hundred years ago, yet is the language of it, not only pure, but strong and elegant in the highest degree.” WorldYearsBelieveTwoLanguageStrongI BelieveChurchPrayerCommonModernPureDegreesHighestHundredYears AgoEnglandAncientBreatheRationalElegantPietyLiturgyChurch Of EnglandModern Languages Book:John Wesley's The Book of Common Prayer Source: John Wesley's The Book of Common Prayer
“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature. . . . [In] the formation of the American governments . . . it will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of heaven. . . . These governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.” FirstsPersonsStatesReasonUseGovernmentAmericaReligionHeavenChurchSimpleUnitedPrinciplesUnited StatesAtheismInfluenceExampleDegreesSeparationSensesInterviewsSecularUnited States Of AmericaEmployedChurch And StateFormationSeparation Of Church And StateOur Founding FathersFounding Fathers ChristianState GovernmentUs Founding FathersSeparation Between Church And StateFounding Fathers ReligiousAmerican GovernmentReligion GodChristian ChurchConstitution Of The United StatesFounding Fathers Anti ReligionFounding Fathers Of AmericaFounding AmericaAmerican Founding FathersFounding Fathers AtheistDeismReligion ChristianChristian FatherUnited States GovernmentReligion And GovernmentAmerican Constitution Author:John Adams