Religion – Page 2 – Lisa Marie Blair

I Keep On

All the time I pray to Buddha
I keep on
killing mosquitoes.”

— Kobayashi Issa

Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.”

— Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (via philosophybits)

Then Whence Evil?

Epicurus’s old questions are still unanswered: Is he (God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? then whence evil?”

— David Hume

Nothing New Under the Sun

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

— Ecclesiastes 1:9, New International Version

Friedrich Nietzsche on God

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Bertrand Russell on Religion

“My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.”

— Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (via Philosophy Bits)

All Ideas Are Dangerous

One must also recognize that morality is based on ideas and that all ideas are dangerous—dangerous because ideas can only lead to action and where the action leads no man can say. And dangerous in this respect: that confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one’s beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses.”

— James Baldwin, Stranger in the Village (via Erica Avey)

None of us is pure, and purity is a dreary pursuit left to Puritans.”

— Rebecca Solnit, Mysteries of Thoreau, Unsolved (via Austin Kleon)

Tag: Religion