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Religious Experience Quotes

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Religious Experience Quotes

“I climbed toward God, leaving behind the noise of the world, seeking the silence of eternity.”

Meditation Eternity Inner Peace Literary Fiction Spiritual Journey Religious Experience Escape From Worldly Noise Faith And Transcendence Mountains And God Silence And Reflection

Author:Angelika Regossi

“Let's Look at Subjective Religious Experiences This Way: What if ten thousand people went up to a mountain top, saw something, and then they all disagreed with what they saw, even people who largely agreed with each other? Even with this best possible analogy to subjective religious experiences we would still have a reason to think the lack of oxygen caused them all to hallucinate.”

Reason Atheism Religious Experience Hallucination Occam S Razor Subjective Experience Anecdotal Evidence Subjective Religious Experience

Author:John W. Loftus

“In the case of someone who is spiritual receptive, it is possible to talk of an analogy between the impact made by a work of art and that of a purely religious experience. Arts acts above all on the soul shaping its spiritual structure.”

Art Soul Religious Experience

Author:Andrei Tarkovsky

“The recasting of the Origin Myth as a story about the perils of disobedience precipitated a kind of decoupling of scripture from religious experience: when religious authorities began to insist on the literal truth of scripture, they were effectively promoting a kind of secular rationalism that states that one does not need to have a religious experience of any kind to live a moral life: all one has to do is declare one’s faith in scripture, in the doctrine of Jesus’ divinity and such, and accept the authority of the Holy Catholic Church as God’s representative on Earth.”

Truth Faith Authority Scripture Disobedience Catholic Church Rationalism Religious Experience Moral Life Origin Myth

Book:Entheogens, Society and Law: The Politics of Consciousness, Autonomy and Responsibility

Source: Entheogens, Society and Law: The Politics of Consciousness, Autonomy and Responsibility

“If you don't believe in transcendent experience, you haven't been to the right concert, you know, you haven't used the right drugs, you haven't had sex with the right partner.”

Belief Transcendence Religious Experience

Book:Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on Christianity Between an Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son – An Intimate Dual Memoir of Faith, Family, and Healing

Source: Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on Christianity Between an Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son – An Intimate Dual Memoir of Faith, Family, and Healing

“The air was filled with a big noise and I tried to move. I felt the heaven was going down upon the earth and that it had engulfed me. I have really touched God. He came into me myself, yes God exists, I cried, and I don’t remember anything else. You all, healthy people, he said, can’t imagine the happiness which we epileptics feel during the second or so before our fit.… I don’t know if this felicity lasts for seconds, hours or months, but believe me, for all the joys that life may bring, I would not exchange this one.”

Hallucinations Religious Experience Epilepsy Ecstatic Epilepsy Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Indeed, there is a case for arguing that Homo Sapiens is also Homo Religious. Men and women started to worship gods as soon as they became recognizably human; they created religions at the same time as they created works of art. This was not simply because they wanted to propitiate powerful forces; these early faiths expressed the wonder and mystery that seem always to have been an essential component of the human experience of this beautiful yet terrifying world. (…) It was not tacked onto a primordially secular nature by manipulative kings and priests but was natural to humanity.”

Religion Wonder Mystery Human Experience Religious Faith Religious Experience Early Humans Human Cognition

Book:History of God

Source: History of God

“Distance reminds us that there’s a lot more to the universe than just people—that there’s even a lot more to people than just people. It reminds us that there are mental spaces inside our skulls as enormous as the spaces out there. The experience of distance, of inner distance and outer distance, of distance in time and distance in space—it’s the first and fundamental religious experience.”

Religious Experience Spaces Distances

Book:Island

Source: Island

“Blasphemy is a religious experience.”

Religion Blasphemy Religious Experience

Book:Sojourn

Source: Sojourn

“Bodies constrain but do not determine religious experience. It matters that humans have two eyes facing forward and a cerebral cortex with billions of neurons for higher-order thinking.”

Bodies Religious Experience

Book:Religion: A Very Short Introduction

Source: Religion: A Very Short Introduction

“I was brought up by an Episcopalian father and Presbyterian mother in nondenominational Army chapels all over the world and never really had much religious experience.”

World Mother Father Religious Army Chapel Religious Experience Presbyterians Episcopalians

Author:Sally Quinn

“Meditation essentially means having a great time. Some people have applied a sense or a feeling to the meditative experience, such that, meditation has become a quantifiable religious experience, which means it's not any fun!”

People Inspirational Mean Feelings Fun Religious Meditation Buddhism Great Times Religious Experience

Author:Frederick Lenz

“All who have actually attained any real religious experience never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not speak in the same tongue.”

Knows Doe Different Real Soul Form Speak Religious Tongue Quarrels Religious Experience Different Religions

Author:Swami Vivekananda

“I never intended for the Monster Ball to be a religious experience, it just became one.”

Religious Balls Monsters Religious Experience

Author:Lady Gaga

“Funny you mention my dinner parties when I have just suggested that inviting close friends over to share a meal with candlelight and wine at your table could be a form of religious experience for some people. To me its a form of sacrament.”

People Funny Form Religious Party Share Tables Wine Dinner Meals Sacraments Inviting Close Friends Dinner Party Religious Experience Candlelight

Author:Sally Quinn

“Painting' and 'religious experience' are the same thing. It is a question of the perpetual motion of a right idea.”

Ideas Religious Painting Perpetual Religious Experience Right Ideas Perpetual Motion

Book:Ben Nicholson

Source: Ben Nicholson

“I feel like one of the things that is central to American life is the religious experience, and I think that the experience of being Muslim in America is as valid and as important a perspective on the religious experience of America as evangelical Christianity or Judaism - whatever it may be.”

Thinking Feels May Important America Life Is Religious Christianity Perspective Judaism Evangelical American Life Religious Experience

Author:Ayad Akhtar

“The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact.”

Facts Vision Materials Horror Insanity Lunatic Religious Experience Shambles

Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience

“It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.”

Way Christian Universe Differences Accepting Emotional Saint Passionate Practicals Resignation Stoic Religious Experience

Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience

“Real religion should be something that liberates men. But churches don't want free men who can think for themself and find their own divinity within. When a religion becomes organized it is no longer a religious experience but only superstition and estrangement.”

Thinking Men Want Should Real Church Religious Atheism Positive Atheism Organized Divinity Superstitions Free Man Religious Experience Estrangement

Author:Federico Fellini

“Going to my shows, it's like a religious experience, because you come out, you go in one person, you come out a different person.”

Persons Different Shows Religious Religious Experience

Author:Michael Jackson

“the biggest threat to the religious experience may well come from organized religion itself.”

Wells May Religious Threat Organized Organized Religion Religious Experience

Book:Deep Play

Source: Deep Play

“There is no real religious experience that does not express itself in charity.”

Doe Real Religious Charity Religious Experience

Author:C. H. Dodd

“Faith is the proper name of religious experience.”

Names Religious Religious Experience

Author:John Baillie

“The first religious experience that I can remember is getting under the nursery table to pray that the dancing mistress might be dead before we got to the Dancing Class.”

Firsts I Can Might Remember Religious Class Praying Tables Dancing Dance Mistress Nursery Religious Experience

Book:Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood

Source: Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood

“Whether any surfer wants to admit it or not, I think we've all had moments like looking at nice waves coming through the lineup maybe, only for a moment, feeling that we are in the presence of something holy. There is a spiritual-ness when you actually get in harmony with something as natural as the waves and the ocean, and yeah, it is definitely a religious experience.”

Thinking Want Moments Feelings Spiritual Natural Religious Nice Holy Ocean Harmony Yeah Wave Surfer Religious Experience

Author:Gerry Lopez

“... religious experience, as we have studied it, cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief. The only thingthat it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace.”

Belief Religious Unions Religious Experience

Book:Writings, 1902-1910

Source: Writings, 1902-1910

“Over the years since I became a Christian, I have always deliberately explained that I have 'accepted Jesus Christ.' These words are invariably translated into 'Colson's professed religious experience.' I discovered that one major U.S. daily, as a matter of policy, will not print the two words Jesus Christ together; when combined, the editor says, it represents an editorial judgment.”

Years Two Matter Christian Together Jesus Christ Religious Policy Judgment Majors Jesus Christ Accepted Print Editors Editorials Religious Experience

Author:Charles Colson

“One time on a dive, I wound up drifting up in darkness surrounded by billions of photoluminescent creatures. It was a religious experience, one only a poet could do justice to.”

Religious Justice Darkness Poet Creatures Wounds Billions One Time Drifting Religious Experience

Author:Graham Hawkes

“A sense of continuity with the rest of creation is a form of religious experience essential to sanity.”

Form Religion Religious Creation Essentials Sanity Continuity Religious Experience

Author:Rene Dubos

“The unconscious is the only available source of religious experience. This in certainly not to say that what we call the unconscious is identical with God or is set up in his place. It is simply the medium from which religious experience seems to flow. As to what the further cause of such experience might be, the answer to this lies beyond the range of human knowledge.”

Humans Seems Might Lying Causes Religious Answers Source Flow Available Mediums Range Unconscious Identical Human Knowledge Religious Experience

Author:Carl Jung

“Primarily I am a passionately religious man, and my novels must be written from the depth of my religious experience.”

Men Religion Religious Novel Written Depth Religious Experience

Book:The Letters of D. H. Lawrence

Source: The Letters of D. H. Lawrence

“I love theater. I think theater, when its done right, is the best, like a religious experience. When it is done badly, it's the worst thing. It's just an incredible experience.”

Thinking Done Religious Worst Theater Incredibles Worst Things Religious Experience

Author:John Leguizamo

“There's a difference between knowing God and knowing about God. Knowing about God is all of the stuff we've been told and all of the books we've read and all of our religious experiences and what others have told us and tried to convince us of. But knowing God is when we make conscious contact.”

Book Stuff Differences Religious Knowing Conscious Contact Convince God Knows Knowing God Religious Experience Convince Us

Author:Wayne Dyer

“The emotional aspects of a wilderness experience might be compared to a religious experience. It is particularly valuable for those people whose unconscious associations of pain and discomfort in relationships to man render a deity in human form impossible. Christianity is unacceptable to some people because of the use of the human symbol, but some who can't accept Christ can gain a tremendous sense of peace from relating to uncontaminated areas.”

“If you have this deep feeling of empathy for the natural world, you feel it so profoundly. It's almost a religious experience. I feel that I could never really say the depth of feeling or connection I feel to the natural world, which has made me.”

Ifs World Feels Made Feelings Natural Religious Empathy Connections Depth Natural World Religious Experience Deep Feeling

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“I say that creeds, dogmas, and theologies are inventions of the mind. It is the nature of the mind to make sense out of experience, to reduce the conglomerates of experience to units of comprehension which we call principles, or ideologies, or concepts. Religious experience is dynamic, fluid, effervescent, yeasty. But the mind can't handle these so it has to imprison religious experience in some way, get it bottled up. Then, when the experience quiets down, the mind draws a bead on it and extracts concepts, notions, dogmas, so that religious experience can make sense to the mind.”

Way Mind Religious Principles Draws Concepts Notion Handle Invention Theology Ideology Make Sense Creeds Dogma Units Fluid Comprehension Beads Religious Experience

Author:Howard Thurman

“Religious experiences are real and common, whether or not God exists, and these experiences often make people whole and at peace.”

People Real Whole Religious Common God Exists Religious Experience

Book:The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

Source: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

“I think of myself as a highly spiritual person, but without - I was never really given a religion or a religious experience or a community to sort of subscribe to.”

Thinking Persons Spiritual Given Community Religious Religious Experience

Author:James Taylor

“The bible is not a religious experience for me. This book bundles together the entire culture of Judaism: our language, our history, our geography. God is merely a byproduct of the bible.”

Book Together Culture Language Religious Judaism Geography Bundles Religious Experience

Author:Tommy Lapid

“You have to be closer to religious origins -- the generation of the 20's was truly secular in that it still knew its theology and its varieties of religious experience. We are post-secular, inventing new faiths, without any sense of organizing truths. The truths we accept are so multiple that honesty becomes little more than a strategy by which you manage your tendencies toward duplicity.”

Littles Stills Religious Accepting Generations Honesty Strategy Theology Tendencies Manage Variety Posts Multiple Secular Inventing Religious Experience Duplicity

Author:Ann Douglas

“If I had a religious experience, what I know for sure is that I would stop doing philosophy and would start doing religion, teaching classes in religion, preaching in a local church. That is fine and noble activity. But I do not feel entitled to engage in it. So for me philosophy is my fate.”

Ifs Knows Feels Philosophy Church Religious Class Fate Teaching Fine Activity Noble Locals Preaching Entitled Religious Experience Local Church

Book:Impossible Objects

Source: Impossible Objects

“When you open an Apple product it's like a religious experience.”

Religious Products Apples Religious Experience

Author:Lee Clow

“I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars.... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light.... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.”

Kind Littles Book Light Universe Left Stars Religious Answers Sun Scales Far Away Librarian Grandeur Stunning Magnificence Religious Experience Points Of Light

Author:Carl Sagan

“Entheogens are not to be lightly trifled with... However, if taken with the right attitude and in the proper setting, psychoactive drugs may produce religious experiences. ...it is far less clear that they can produce religious lives.”

Ifs May Religious Attitude Taken Clear Produce Drug Setting Settings Religious Experience Religious Life Psychoactive Drugs

Author:Huston Smith

“The fact that people have religious experiences is interesting from the psychological point of view, but it does not in any way imply that there is such a thing as religious knowledge...Unless he can formulate this 'knowledge' in propositions that are empirically verifiable, we may be sure that he is deceiving himself.”

People Way May Doe Facts Religious Interesting Views Point Of View Psychological Deceiving Propositions Religious Experience

Author:A.J. Ayer

“The standpoint of the man who relies on religious experience for capturing Reality must always remain individual and incommunicable.”

Men Reality Individual Religious Rely Standpoint Religious Experience

Author:Muhammad Iqbal

“Another way of judging the value of a prophet's religious experience, therefore, would be to examine the type of manhood that he has created, and the cultural world that has sprung out of the spirit of his message.”

World Way Would Be Spirit Values Religious Judging Type Messages Prophet Manhood Another Way Sprung Religious Experience

Book:The religious thought in Islam

Source: The religious thought in Islam

“The first time I ever saw Lydia Lunch perform it was a religious experience. Not only is she intelligent and beautiful but she actually understands how "my" brain works. This almost rivals my first concert- Cindy Lauper when I was 12. She was so fascinating to me at the time. She made me want to dye my hair pink and start a band. (SO I naturally did)... All Cure records have had a great effect on me musically also.”

Want Firsts Made Beautiful Religious Brain Records Saws Effects Hair Band First Time Intelligent Cures Fascinating Concerts Lunch Rivals Religious Experience Cindy

Author:Jessicka

“I'm interested in the origins of the religious experience, how the history of religion has evolved over the last umpteen thousand years, and where religiosity is going in the future. I think that's a topic I've been chewing on for a few years; I would love to eventually work on and produce a book out of it.”

Thinking Years Book Lasts Religious Produce Thousand Thousand Years Topics Chewing Religious Experience

Author:Reza Aslan