“I think I have one answer, that is partly religious and partly secular; and that is to say, we ought to at least recognize that we and the Russians are in a common predicament. That would be religious in the sense, "Judge not lest you be judged."” ThinkingWould BeReligiousAnswersCommonJudgingOughtJudgedSecularPredicaments Author:Reinhold Niebuhr
“I believe the Bible tells a story we recognize as true. I don't just mean it tells an accurate story - though it's telling that the Bible stands tall even after more than 2,000 years of secular criticism.” YearsBelieveMeanStoriesI BelieveCriticismTallAccurateSecular Author:Max Lucado
“There's an agreement that Syria should be a unified country, united; that it needs to be secular; that ISIL needs to be taken on; and that there needs to be a managed transition, but there is a difference obviously in what that means and what that outcome may or may not be.” NeedsShouldMayMeanCountryDifferencesUnitedTakenOutcomesAgreementTransitionSecularSyriaUnifiedIsil Author:John F. Kerry
“The agreement is fundamentally that we want to try to resolve this. The agreement is that ISIL is a threat to everybody, and we need to come together to find a way to fight ISIL. The agreement is that we want to save Syria, keep it unified, keep it secular. So surely in those very fundamental principles on which we could agree.” WayWantNeedsTryingTogetherFightingPrinciplesAgreeFundamentalsThreatAgreementResolveSecularSyriaUnifiedFundamental PrinciplesIsil Author:John F. Kerry
“Intolerance has always been with us, you know. The moment you have ideology, we have intolerance, whether it's the secular ideology or, you know ideocratic ideology, which always brings with it some kind of intolerance.” KnowsKindMomentsIdeologyIntoleranceSecular Author:Wole Soyinka
“I've lived here [in Egypt] among Christians and Muslims, and we never had a conflict. Now you have a conflict between Christians and Muslims and Baha'is and Sunni and Shia. The Salafists are trying to abort the revolution and make it religious, though the revolution started secular.” TryingChristianReligiousRevolutionConflictSecularEgyptShiaBaha Author:Nawal El Saadawi
“There was not a single Islamic slogan [in Egypt]. It was secular men and women, and in fact, they were unified. Now they want to divide the revolution, and religion is a very strong weapon.” MenWantFactsStrongRevolutionWeaponsMen And WomenIslamicDividesVery StrongSecularEgyptSlogansUnified Author:Nawal El Saadawi
“Arab nationalism, which tended to be until relatively recent somewhat secular in motivation, has now become increasingly religious and fundamentalist. And that makes it more pervasive, more difficult to deal with.” MotivationDifficultReligiousDealsNationalismSecularFundamentalist Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
“Marriage is a unified institution. Marriage means a committed, legally sanctioned relationship between a man and a woman. That's what it means. That's what it means in the revelations. That's what it means in the secular law. You cannot have that marriage coexisting institutionally with something else called same-gender marriage. It simply is a definitional impossibility.” MenMeanLawInstitutionsCommittedGenderRevelationsSecularImpossibilityUnified Author:Lance B. Wickman
“Gospel artists have to do something that secular artists don't always have to do and that's kind of abide by and reflect a certain set of values and morals. So everything that we do, every decision that we make, every picture that we take has a different weight on it. It's always interesting in balancing being an artist but being a minister as well.” WellsKindDifferentArtistCertainValuesDecisionInterestingMoralWeightMinistersSecularBeing An ArtistValues And Morals Author:Jonathan McReynolds
“Jesus communicated parables to the secular people around him and he used stories that were very relevant to their lives, and He was taking heaven's truth and packaging it in an earthly context.” PeopleStoriesUsedJesusHeavenRelevantSecularParablesPackaging Author:Stephen Kendrick
“A big secular thing going on is technology and deflation. This is where I think millennials are getting that it is an improvement in life, and they're taking advantage of it.” ThinkingBigsTechnologyAdvantageImprovementSecularMillennialsTaking AdvantageDeflation Author:Ken Moelis
“There's a culture war in this country. Americans in recent years, as you know, have become more secular. They don't go to church as often. Bible reading, prayers in public are now frowned upon. And, of course, in addition to that, a lot of people have become much more supportive of LGBT rights. And in reaction to that, biblically conservative Americans feel that their faith is under assault.” PeopleKnowsFeelsYearsWarCountryCultureCoursesReadingChurchPrayerRightsConservativeReactionsLgbtSecularAssaultSupportiveBible Reading Author:Tom Gjelten
“Humanism cannot survive on a purely secular platform.” HumanismPlatformsSecular Author:Roger E. Olson
“Only a loving and covenant-making personal God can provide humans with unique dignity, worth, and rights. Blind nature cannot do that. So, for the Christian, "secular humanism" is an oxymoron.” HumansChristianRightsUniqueDignityBlindHumanismSecularCovenantOxymoronSecular Humanism Author:Roger E. Olson
“The bad news is that the movement toward the partnership side of the social scale (and it is always a matter of degree, as no society is a pure partnership or domination system) has been fiercely resisted and countered by periodic regressions. So domination systems have rebuilt themselves in different forms - be they secular or religious, eastern or western, leftist or rightist.” Has BeensDifferentMatterFormSocialSidesReligiousMovementPureDegreesNewsWesternScalesPartnershipSecularEasternDominationBad NewsLeftistsRegression Author:Riane Eisler
“If we look at the last decades, we see that the US rightist-fundamentalist alliance demonized partnership-oriented families and painted women's rights as a threat to "tradition" - which of course it is to traditions of domination. These people had an integrated political agenda that recognizes that a "traditional" authoritarian, male dominated, punitive family is foundational to an authoritarian, male dominated, punitive politics. We can see this connection in sharp relief in brutal top-down regimes, be they secular like Nazi Germany or religious like ISIS in the Middle East.” PeopleIfsLooksLastsPoliticalCoursesReligiousRightsMiddleTraditionConnectionsThreatMalesEastDecadesTraditionalGermanyReliefAgendasRegimesMiddle EastPartnershipBrutalSecularWomens RightsNaziDominationIsisAlliancesIntegratedFundamentalistNazi GermanyTop DownPolitical Agendas Author:Riane Eisler
“The rise of what's called Islamic fundamentalism is to a significant extent a result of the collapse of secular nationalist alternatives which were either discredited internally or destroyed, leaving few other options. Something like that may be true of American society.” MayResultsLeavingSignificantDestroyedBeing TrueAlternativesIslamicCollapseSecularFundamentalismAmerican SocietyIslamic Fundamentalism Author:Noam Chomsky
“Independent of the critique I'm making, I'm just trying to paint a more comprehensive portrait of American religion than you get from a right versus left, religious conservatives versus secular liberal, believer versus atheist, binary. Too often, we just look at religion in America through that kind of either/or lens. I think it's much more complicated than that.” ThinkingTryingLooksKindAmericaLeftReligiousIndependentPaintAtheistComplicatedBelieverSecularPortraitsVersusLensesComprehensiveCritiqueBinaryEither Or Author:Ross Douthat
“Institutional Christianity has had clear secular benefits to American life for hundreds of years. It's played both a prophetic role in terms of generating moral critiques of American excesses, and so on, and also a communal role, in terms of building community as the country moved westward to the role my own Catholic Church played in assimilating generations of immigrants.” YearsCountryTermCommunityChurchMy OwnMoralChristianityRolesClearGenerationsBuildingBenefitsCatholicMovedImmigrantsExcessSecularCatholic ChurchCritiqueAmerican LifePropheticBuilding Community Author:Ross Douthat
“Many things about American life, that even secular people consider good, have flowed from the presence of a robust, resilient institutional Christianity.” PeopleChristianitySecularResilientRobustAmerican Life Author:Ross Douthat
“The fact that institutional churches have gone into decline doesn't mean that we're going to enter some purely secular age. Secular people need to be aware of that.” PeopleNeedsMeanFactsAgeChurchGoneDeclineSecular Author:Ross Douthat
“What replaces Christianity isn't going to be Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and so on. It's going to be something else and something secular people may not like very much.” PeopleMayChristianitySecular Author:Ross Douthat
“I think it is fair, in a way, to describe certain forms of Marxism, for instance, as the secular equivalent of a religion. But, I think the same is true, to a certain extent, of secular liberalism as well.” ThinkingWayWellsFormCertainFairsInstanceLiberalismSecularMarxism Author:Ross Douthat
“If you're willing to recognize the religious element in one secular ideology, you need to be able to recognize it in your own.” IfsNeedsAbleReligiousWillingElementsIdeologySecular Author:Ross Douthat
“I think that secular liberals need to recognize that they are still, often, hanging their worldview on what are metaphysical ideas.” ThinkingNeedsStillsIdeasSecularMetaphysicalWorldview Author:Ross Douthat
“Even secular people can't really escape from the need to rest their ideas on some belief, some sort of commitment that is not scientific commitment.” PeopleNeedsIdeasBeliefCommitmentSecular Author:Ross Douthat
“As far as the public is concerned, India is amazingly secular.” ConcernedIndiaSecular Author:Shahrukh Khan
“Hannibal is very much a secular story, even though we dance right up to the supernatural a few times in the show, and, arguably, you could say we dipped our toe in an instance or two.” TwoStoriesShowsInstanceSecularToes Author:Bryan Fuller
“You've got a generation of young men - almost all are young men - in situations of great economic hardship, where they don't really have work. The chances of them making a decent life for themselves, of making a family, living in a kind of decent, happy way, are very, very remote. It's very hard for them to ever even have that as a dream, so when people are that deprived of the ordinary hope of human beings, it creates anger. And that anger can be channeled by unscrupulous persons, whether secular or religious leaders, and there's been a lot of that.” PeopleMenWayHumansKindPersonsHardDreamYoungReligiousChanceHuman BeingsSituationLeaderGenerationsEconomicOrdinaryYoung ManDecentHardshipSecularDeprivedReligious LeadersDecent Life Author:Salman Rushdie
“If you are a kid in America, and you live in a secular home and go to public school, you know nothing about Jesus of Nazareth. The only time you hear the word Jesus is when somebody's yelling at you - Jesus, okay?” IfsKnowsHomeKidsSchoolAmericaJesusOkaySecularOnly TimePublic SchoolYellingNazareth Author:Bill O'Reilly
“Once you get past the grand normative claims made in the West for literature, especially the novel, in the post-Christian era - that it is a secular substitute for religion, hallmark of modern civilization, a priori liberal and cosmopolitan, with authors appearing to implicitly embody such pious ideals - you encounter a less agreeable reality: parochialism, blinkered views, even racial prejudices of the kind the bourgeoisie have held everywhere.” KindMadeRealityChristianPastLiteratureViewsNovelModernCivilizationIdealsClaimsPrejudiceWestErasPostsEncountersSubstitutesSecularAppearingPiousHallmarkBourgeoisieRacial PrejudiceModern CivilizationParochialism Author:Pankaj Mishra
“I think that when people experience something that seems to be supernatural, in some ways it cuts through the secular mindset.” PeopleThinkingWaySeemsCuttingMindsetSecular Author:Nicky Gumbel
“My position on the issue of homosexuality is no different from the position of the Anglican Church and all the major denominations around the world. I know that it's different from the secular culture in the western world, but it's no different from the teaching of the church globally. We're Christians basically.” KnowsWorldDifferentChristianCultureChurchIssuesTeachingPositionMajorsWesternAround The WorldSecularHomosexualityWestern WorldDenominations Author:Nicky Gumbel
“From time to time I have wished to do more work in philosophy of religion, but the demands and challenges have been such that it needed more work than I had time for. I sneaked a chapter into my book on loyalty that touched on some issues in the area. Maybe in the future I will try responding to Philip Kitcher's excellent critique: Life After Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism - it gets closer to me than much of what is produced in the field.” TryingBookPhilosophyChallengesHumanismLoyaltyExcellentSecularCritiquePhilosophy Of ReligionPhilip Author:John Kleinig
“If you are a Christian, you can still practice Stoicism and think of the Logos as the Word of God. If you are a secular person, an agnostic or an atheist, you may treat the Logos as "Einstein's god," that is the factual recognition that the cosmos is ordered according to rational principles, without which science itself wouldn't be possible.” ThinkingChristianAtheistRationalRecognitionWord Of GodSecularAgnosticStoicismFactual Author:Massimo Pigliucci
“It's fantastic to believe, because they get so many benefits. I get mad at the atheist community when they put down believers because they put down religion so much. Now I am an atheist, but I don't like to describe myself with that term. I prefer secular humanist. But I do see first hand how beneficial religion is, for example if you are a refugee getting in a boat to take you across the Mediterranean, a belief in God is an advantage. I completely understand that comfort.” BelieveBeliefTermCommunityComfortMadAtheistBelieverBoatFantasticHumanistSecularRefugeeBelief In God Author:Julia Sweeney
“For decades, since the mid-twentieth century, the nationalist movement, and Fatah in particular, has dominated the political scene. Palestinian politics were primarily nationalistic, secular. Now, suddenly we are seeing the election of a religious party with extreme political ideologies and with a social agenda that seems inconsistent with the cultural heritage of the Palestinian people.” PeoplePoliticalReligiousPartySceneElectionIdeologyPalestinianSecularInconsistentPolitical Ideology Author:Hanan Ashrawi
“For many American-Jewish writers, the dominant motifs have been cultural, secular, sometimes comic, often satirical. Writing about the religious component of Judaism, I found my own themes independent of the New York experience and the immigrant experience.” WritingSometimesReligiousIndependentComicSecularJudaismSatirical Author:Allegra Goodman
“I'm gonna try to talk about this in a secular way, but where's the spirituality of just being a person? I think it contributes to this rise in bad manners and mean comments; people are being driven by seeking something that's just designed to keep them seeking something. I'm not reducing people in this age to phone-addicted dum-dums, but we have to remind ourselves to also study compassion and inner life as well.” PeopleThinkingTryingMeanAgeSpiritualityCompassionStudyDrivenMannersCommentSecularBad Manners Author:Lauren Graham
“Many people celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday for the most part than a Christian holiday. Obviously, many, many people celebrate it as a Christian holiday. But then there's even more people or there's additional people who celebrate it as a secular holiday as well.” PeopleChristianCelebrateHolidaySecular Author:Adam Conover
“I love having millions of viewers and I want the show to grow. But more than anything I hope it always impacts people's lives with the honest presence of God and that His authentic power is felt by everyone who watches. I hope it gets so important that it will become the first faith based talk show to find success even on secular TV where people so need the message.” PeopleImportantHonestSecularPresence Of GodFaith Based Author:Cynthia Garrett
“I dream that one day I can really combine where I came from on network TV, with where I am, and not have to be told by a secular network president again that Jesus won't work on network TV, when I know thats not true. People need the message of love and hope that Jesus represents. He's not divisive. People are. Love is the greatest unifier and Jesus is love.” PeopleDreamJesusPresidentLove IsOne DaySecularHope And Love Author:Cynthia Garrett
“My suspicion is that those who seem oblivious to suffering, whether it is nearby or in remote corners, are for the most part unaware, perhaps blinded by doctrine and ideology. For them, the answer is to develop a critical attitude toward articles of faith, secular or religious; to encourage their capacity to question, to explore, to view the world from the standpoint of others. And direct exposure is never very far away, wherever we live - perhaps the homeless person huddling in the cold or asking for a few pennies for food, or all too many more.” WorldSufferingReligiousAttitudeColdDirectIdeologyFar AwaySuspicionSecularHomelessOblivious Author:Noam Chomsky
“In the very first part of the constitution there is the article that refuses any law or any article in discrepancy with Sharia. We Iraqis feel it was imposed on us. It wasn't a local thing. Iraqis have led a sort of secular life for almost 50 years.” ConstitutionSecular Author:Yanar Mohammed
“The first thing to say is that the ordinary criminal law in this country, the Human Rights Act, the Children's Act, all of the laws of the country take precedence, but what I'm also saying is that within the context of a secular country, which Britain now kind of is, or at least a country which purports to be relatively equal between religions, there should be some scope for allowing faith communities to govern themselves - subject to it being consensual and subject to everyone's human rights being observed.” KindCountryCommunityEqualHuman RightsSecularCriminal Law Author:Sadakat Kadri
“I think there's some pretty amazing language in the Bible. The thing that's always been interesting to me about religion is that compared to the more modern spirituality, the West Coast pseudo-Buddhist thing that people go for these days, actual Buddhism and Islam have been looking at these philosophical questions, at really hard questions, for a long time. There's a lot of stuff that philosophy doesn't talk about, and in the secular world, a lot of times, people don't talk about these ideas, and that was always really interesting for me.” PeopleThinkingWorldLongPhilosophySpiritualityLanguageInterestingModernBuddhismPhilosophicalIslamSecularReally Interesting Author:Win Butler
“You should support Israel not because it is Jewish but because it is a sane, secular democracy. You want Lebanon to be at peace. You don't care much about Kuwait.” CareSupportDemocracySaneSecular Author:Gene Weingarten
“There are students whose religious upbringing is going to make them feel uncomfortable in a class where certain kinds of secular ideas are presented. There are students whose ideas about history or sexuality are going to be similarly challenged to question, to affirm or to change those ideas. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be exposed to them; that's why they're at school. That's why they come to university: to be taught how to think well and critically about material that they're being presented with. But it's the teacher who is certified to teach them how to do that.” ThinkingKindMeanSchoolReligiousTeachTeacherStudentsSexualityUncomfortableSecularUpbringing Author:Joan Wallach Scott
“Bible Gateway has created a way to make the Word of God accessible and reflective of the technological world we live in. Bible Gateway has proven that embracing innovation can bring people closer to God. I've used unconventional ways to bridge the gap between the secular and the spiritual worlds in my own career, so I admire Bible Gateway's bold, brilliant, and effective way of contributing to the spiritual journeys of many people around the world.” PeopleWorldSpiritualJourneyInnovationBrilliantAdmireWord Of GodSecularTechnologicalSpiritual Journey Author:DeVon Franklin