Quotes about philosophy-of-religion

When God lays His finger on your heart it cannot help but be filled with love for others if that doesn't happen there is nothing wrong with God's finger there is something wrong with your heart

knowledge depends on the mode of the knower for what is known is in the knower according to the measure of his mode

Mountains like these and travelers in the mountains and events that happen to them here are found not only in Zen literature but in the tales of every major religion. This allegory of a physical mountain for the spiritual one that stands between each soul and its goal is an easy and natural one to make. Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoi

A Christian is supposed to be in the world, and yet not of the world--a Both/And as perplexing and demanding as the Either/Or that precedes the life of faith. I'm at once a pure, beautiful, genderless soul, but at the same time a gendered body full of flaws, sins, and wanting. This contradiction, the Both/And, is the Cross.

I have found that the more I reflect philosophically on the attributes of God the more overwhelmed I become at his greatness and the more excited I become about Bible doctrine. Whereas easy appeals to mystery prematurely shut off reflection about God, rigorous and earnest effort to understand him is richly rewarded with deeper appreciation of who he is, more confidence in his reality and care, and a more intelligent and profound worship of his person.

Even if one gives up the concept of God, there are quite a few recognized immaterial things that one has to struggle with. Things such as thought, truth, logic, morality, purpose, and justice become a real problem if the universe is simply material. One could say that these things are imaginary, but then they would have to explain the immaterial construct of imagination.

No claims were made by him [Buddha] to any unalterable truth, nor did he demand that his teachings should simply be accepted, taken on trust or acquired through an act of faith. Instead he [Buddha] encouraged those who wished to make the spiritual journey he himself had undertaken to experiment for themselves as individuals, retaining what was useful to them and abandoning what was not.

You can reach the roof of your house by stone stairs, by wooden stairs, by bamboo steps or by a rope. Likewise, there are diverse ways of experiencing the Absolute Divinity – the Ultimate Oneness. In fact, in that blissful state of oneness, you and God are one and the same thing.

He who is desireless, self-reliant, independent and free of bonds functions like a dead leaf blown about by the wind of causality .

While a man of pure intelligence may achieve thegoal by the most casual of instruction, another may seek knowledge all his life and still remain bewildered.

What we gain in the world, we lose in the world, forgotten in death. We must rather fancy what we brought into the world, for therein lives our story, our legend.

sometimes we don't need to think to beleive

Spirituality is the ability to say - It is OK, in every circumstance.

Shows itself in the notion that what may be objectively true may in the mouth of certain people become false.

In the world of primitive savages, religion and bigotry go hand in hand. But, in the world of civilized humans, religion and reason must go hand in hand.

It’s gotten far easier to allow ourselves to hate than it is to choose to love.

You are both the worshipper and the worshipped.

The God that humanity so keenly seeks, lives within the human biology, yet they wander hitherto searching for it.

We in the West regard the universe as a creation of God; like an invention or a product. After he created the universe, God set himself to oversee it and manage it. We see God as our boss. He created the universe, he is present in it, he manages every part of it, but he is still separate from it. It's like he installed video cameras all over the universe, so he can see everything that happens, and he can cause this or that to happen, but he is not a part of what happens. The Eastern view is very

Don't make the Divine a nincompoop's idea, of being a man-like entity. What you see here is merely a wandering whirlwind of Infinity.

You have to risk falling to be able to fly.

To explain God after merely reading the scriptures is like explaining the city of New York after seeing it only in a map.

Sometimes I wonder which is worse: To have to kill because it is your job, or to have no remorse for all the murderous things you have done?

Scientific Religion is compatible with Science and in fact, they enrich each other. That's because scientific religion is simply the realization of divinity within one's heart. Therefore, Science and Scientific Religion smoothen each other's path of progress. While on the contrary, far from being compatible with Science, Theoretical Religion consistently tries to impede the development of human society. Moreover, being rigidly based on bookish doctrines, it keeps making efforts to drag the human

Forget organized religions. Forget scriptures. Forget Gods, Fathers, Sons and Spirits. Forget all dogmas taught by the representatives of theoretical religion, and then only you shall be able to visualize the true core of religion.

All religions are born from individual experiences of divine awakening, not from some books.

You the human are the highest temple of God. I would rather worship you, than worship any temple, image or book.

God heals as well as God kills.

Nanak wanted to preach people that God loves both the Hindus and the Muslims the same way. Believing in his spiritual encounter, he wanted to eliminate the distance between the Hindus and the Muslims by teaching the words of equality and One God. But just like usual, he ended up forming yet another religion which became more and more hardcore with its own rituals and regulations in the hands of the subsequent nine Gurus.

The frog in the well knows nothing more grand than its own tiny well.

By believing in an imaginary invisible supernatural entity, humans may become good citizens. But this is not religion. This is merely an illusion of religion.

To stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing from going on one's knees and thanking Him.

Matter is a medium of communication between minds, and everything that exists in the mind can also exist in the body. Furthermore, the body—being the expression of a mental state is developed as a manifestation of the mind.

We have the free will to choose how we react to those stimuli every moment of our life and what we choose creates our destiny.

Morality is totally God’s standard, and his standards and conditions are revealed to us through his written word, the Scriptures (The Bible).

My metaphysical thinking is more in alignment with Plato rather than Aristotle's." ~R. Alan Woods [2013]

For one to define and understand the nature of the universe, one must firstunderstand the nature of the force behind its existence.

There is no God besides the Self. One who knows the Self, knows God.

One who knows the Self, knows God.

Religion is the Self revealing secrets of the Self to the Self.

Dad?" Jesus asked."Yes, son," God said."Why do people have sins?" Jesus asked."It's to remind them that they're human," God replied."But, wouldn't they be better off just being perfect?" Jesus now asked.God smiled, "Then they wouldn't learn anything," he said.

Oppressors specialise in rasing wolves from amonst the sheep then together with the wolves devour the sheep

In the hands of thinking humanity, the purpose of the tool of Divinity or Religion is not the service of bookish doctrines, but the realization of the self.

Without even knowing, humanity actually worships not an Entity, rather a mental state.

A Christian sits in his or her well and thinks that the whole world is his or her well. The Jew sits in his or her little well and thinks that it is the whole world. A Muslim sits cooped up in his or her tiny well and believes it to be the whole universe. The same goes for a Hindu and all others. Also, atheists are no different from all those orthodox believers.

We do not have to believe something is right- to believe a person has a right to choose it. God doesn't force us to serve him. It is a freewill choice we make, so why in the name of all that is holy and right do we think we can force other people to live by our particular brand of religion? We are commanded to Love if we are Christ servers.

It is a bitter thought, how different a thing the Christianity of the world might have been, if the Christian faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of Constantine.

Not bad, not bad at all," Diotallevi said. "To arrive at the truth through the painstaking reconstruction of a false text.

All religions are based on obsolete terminology.

Dad?" Jesus asked."Yes, son?" God replied."Do we look like man or does he look like us?" Jesus asked."Man made god in his image," God said."Why?" Jesus asked."Because it's easier to believe in someone and something if it looks like you or is a symbolic representation of you," God answered."If that's true. What do we look like then?" Jesus asked.God smiled, "We look like everything."Jesus laughed, "Could I look like a giraffe then?""Yes, if the giraffe believes in you," God laughed.Jesus smiled a

The beauty of having faith, is that no matter what the time of day, whether it be day or night I know that someone is always there with me to give me comfort.It doesn't matter whether it is Buddha, God or Allah because whoever it is, is special to each of us. And that is the beauty of having faith.

The beauty of God, is God himself.

I don't have to touch God to know that he's real.

A smile is the key to the gate of heaven and love is the road which will get you there.

Religion without reason is merely an illusion of religion – it is a mockery of religion, like it has become today.

When the mind is without fear and prejudice, and the head is held high with the strength of reasoning, then only the brightest rays of religion can penetrate the darkest corners of the human society.

If you take each step, as if it was your last. You would appreciate the world in all its glory and bask in the glory of god for in his wisdom he created us and the universe all around us.

Science works through replication, rectification and modification. But when it comes to religion, people simply tend to accept the theoretical preachers and their claims of historical God experiences without a single question. If there has been one experience in this world in any branch of knowledge, it absolutely follows that that experience will be repeated eternally. If they are not repeated through natural processes, the thinking humanity would have no way but to disprove that such an experi

There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause. And it is all because people never attempt to reach the fountain-head. They are content only to comply with the customs of their forefathers, and want others to do the same.

Dare to contradict the scientist, not because of your scripture, but because of your own rational thinking.

One who does not believe in the self is an atheist. If you believe in yourself, then you are the most religious person on earth.

When circumstances pour the minds of some young helpless individuals with hatred and rage towards the society, and when that pain, hatred, and rage become unbearable, they turn to the scriptures as the final resort, in a pursuit to find absolution, guided by the psychopathic, misogynistic, genocidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent, fundamentalist preachers.

It has always been science versus fundamentalism, not science versus religion.

Experience, derived from scientific investigation, led to all the scientific literature in history. Likewise, experience, derived from religious transcendence, led to all the religious scriptures in history. It's never the other way around.

There is no "religious language" or "scientific language". There is rather the international notation of mathematics and logic; and English, French, Spanish and the like. In short, "religious discourse" and "scientific discourse" are part of the same overall conceptual structure. Moreover, in that conceptual structure there is a large amount of discourse, which is neither religious nor scientific, that is constantly being utilized by both the religious man and the scientist when they make religi

All religions are mere echoes of this one great religion of Humanism.

Religion without philosophy is sentiment, or sometimes fanaticism, while philosophy without religion is mental speculation.

The sweetness of prayer is the prosperity of the soul.

Dad?" Jesus asked."Yes, son?" God asked."Why are people so scared of dying?" Jesus asked."Because they believe that they only get one life and then they die," God said."But dad, nothing ever dies," Jesus said."You know that and I know that, but sadly, they don't know that," God said and the two of them then looked down towards the Earth.

Liberty is my religion and Humans are my God.

God believes in you. So why don't you?

Dad?" Jesus said."Yes son. What is it?" God replied."Why have you left the stars turned on. It's night time," Jesus asked."It's so that people can find their way home," God said."What do you mean?" Jesus asked his dad."Well" God started to say, "sometimes a person loses their way in life and when that happens all they have to do is look up at the stars and then they will find their way back home to me.""But, what about if it's daytime and there are no stars?" Jesus now asked."Then, I will send t

Dad?" Jesus asked."Yes, son?" God asked."Why do people get sick?" Jesus asked."When they live, life is all about learning so that when the are ready, they can join us here," God said."But, doesn't it hurt?" Jesus asked."Yes, it does. But, to learn about life you have to learn of pain and suffering or else you don't learn what life is all about," God said."Will I suffer like that one day?" Jesus now asked his dad."Yes, because we all have to learn, and that includes me too," God replied sadly.

All creation necessarily ends in this: Creators, powerless, fleeing from the things they have wrought.

If a person takes comfort in his or her faith upon divinity in times of distress, then who the hell am I to say, that the person is delusional.

My Sikh sisters and brothers proclaim with utter glory and faith “Jo Bole So Nihaal, Sat Sri Akaal”, I say ”Jo Anubhava So Nihaal, Sat Sri Akaal”. My translation of the former is “He who utters ‘Great Eternal Truth’ becomes joyous”, while the latter translates to “He who experiences ‘Great Eternal Truth’ becomes joyous”.

Acceptance is religion, sectarianism is blasphemy.

Any scripture that demands irrefutable obedience must be discarded at once.

Blind faith is not real religion my friend.

Buddha lets me see the world in color so that I can appreciate its color.Just as God too lets you see the color of beauty in the world.And so too with Allah because he lets you see the beauty in everything.....I cannot begin to understand all religions, but I know one thing.Color brings love into our world regardless of who we are; what we preach or what we believe in.And to me, that is the only truth that I know.

Dad?" Jesus asked."Yes son?" God replied."Why does man have so many religions?" Jesus asked."It's because they all have different beliefs," God said."Why?" Jesus asked."It's because they have a free mind. It's up to them to choose what they wish to believe in," God said."But, what if they forget about you?" Jesus asked his dad.God replied, "Even though they may forget about me, they will always remember me. Would you ever forget me?" God asked."Never!" said Jesus, "How could I ever forget my fat

A god should not favor any race, any being or any human.A god should not encourage hate, murder, worship or zealotry.A god who does so has no right to be called a god at all.

It is the ultimate religion, through which the son, the Father and all elements of the universe become unified.

I am not that afraid to lose believers, I am afraid not to win the unbelievers.

Religion without reason is like making love without love.

For religion to truly become an aid to humanity as a whole, every human being must make sincere efforts to break down the dogmatic barriers among different religions constructed by the pathologically ill and dangerous fundamentalists.

In the domain of true religion, mere book-learning has no right to enter.

​God is hardwired within the neural circuitry.

​Through ignorance a common man considers his own religion to be the best and makes much useless claims, but when his mind is illuminated by Self-Knowledge, all sectarian quarrels disappear.

In your imagination, 16,000 animals can fit into a boat that is only 440 feet long, 73 feet wide and 44 feet high. You can even decapitate a boy and then fit an elephant’s head on his headless body to bring him back to life. You can construct a demon with as many as ten heads and conceive him to be immortal unless he is hit at his navel. As far as your imagination is concerned, there is no boundary to perception.

The very fact of having fixed conclusions to strive for in orthodox belief does not render the Christian philosopher dogmatic but rather intellectually fruitful, willing to take and follow reason further than the putatively undogmatic unbelieving philosopher

You have to choose your future regrets.

Every brain on your planet generates its own beliefs. Just imagine, around seven billion human brains are generating seven billion unique beliefs at this very moment. Now imagine, what would happen, if all those seven billion humans start imposing their own beliefs on each other. The only thing that is going to come out of such inhuman attempt is chaos and eventually mass extinction. So, the only way to avoid such a catastrophic consequence is to be more compassionate about people’s beliefs.

The book from which to learn religion, is your own mind.