Imagining God Quotes

Nevertheless, it is the Christian theory that it is only a regard for this Being -- partly a trembling fear and partly a kind of conciliation represented to be love -- that keeps the human race from roaring downhill to villainy and disaster. Nor are theologians daunted by the obvious fact that many open and even ribald skeptics are not going that way, but, on the contrary, show a considerably higher degree of virtue than the Christian average. Their answer ... is that the moral sense of every such blameless candidate for Hell 'is a kind of parasitic growth upon the otherworldliness of the society in which he lives.' ... Even men who should know better indulge in this confusion between the religious impulse and common decency. ... But this is surely going beyond the plain facts. A man may be truly religious without imagining God as good at all, and he may be good without believing that there is any moral order in the universe or even that God exists. Religion does not necessarily make men better citizens, whether of their neighborhoods or of the world. ~ H.L. Mencken

When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so. He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment. ~ Pope Francis

But the idea that God might want to change his mind is an example of the fallacy, pointed out by St. Augustine, of imagining God as a being existing in time: time is a property only of the universe that God created. ~ Stephen Hawking

We must never underestimate our power to be wrong when talking about God, when thinking about God, when imagining God, whether in prose or in poetry. A generous orthodoxy, in contrast to the tense, narrow, or controlling orthodoxies of so much of Christian history, doesn't take itself too seriously. It is humble. It doesn't claim too much. It admits it walks with a limp. ~ Brian D. McLaren

I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest - and scientists have to be - we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards - in heaven if not on earth - all those who have not risen up against injustice, wh ~ Paul A.M. Dirac

Believe in yourself the way God believes in you. ~ Yel

It probably didn't help that we kept being taken on holiday to monasteries. Not many kids there, just monks. Although you do find the best reverb in monastic chapels. I have a theory that the religious experience is actually based on reverb - which is why outdoor weddings always seem weird. God isn't in the details, he's in the echo. ~ Tom McRae

Yes, Murray Rothbard believed in freedom, and yes, David Koresh believed in God. ~ William F. Buckley Jr.

It is required to find the infinitely big inside what's infinitely small to feel the presence of God. ~ Pythagoras

The grace of God makes everything possible. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The good news is we don't have to suffer alone. We don't have to carry the burdens of our messy lives alone. God is there for us. He wants to be the Comforter in Chief for the worst that life on this earth may hand us. but we need to know Him - genuinely know Him - not just when tragedy strikes. We need to know Him every moment of every day we live. We need to quit leaving it to the professionals and make know Him the most important mission of our lives. ~ Diane Moody

It does not matter to God whether you wail He exists or not, what matters to Him is doing what He requires you to do with the life He gave you. ~ Chukwuka Amu

In the textbook of revelation, the Bible, God has spoken verbally; and this spoken word has survived every scratch of the human pen. ~ Billy Graham

If all men have "free will" and yet all without exception are under God's wrath, then it follows that "free will" leads them in only one direction - "ungodliness and unrighteousness" (i.e., wickedness). So where is the power of "free will" helping them to do good? If "free will" exists, it does not seem to be able to help men to salvation because it still leaves them under the wrath of God. ~ Martin Luther

One day of favor is better than 10 years of labor ~ Sunday Adelaja

James wrote, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone ~ Erwin W. Lutzer

I was thinking I would miss the rain. I wonder if you can experience the rain in Heaven, if God will let you dip your wings down ... But my biggest expectation now is just to live. I will not go gently into that goodnight ... ~ Farrah Fawcett

None of us are going to have perfect lives. Our own vision of what we think is good maybe different from what He [God] thinks. And we forget that. We think we know what's best and we don't. ~ Bethany Hamilton

God gives everyone a lane and no one can beat you in your lane. Just stay focused on Him and what you are supposed to do. And everything will be alright. ~ Tyler Perry

I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. ~ Charles Bukowski

I don't get what's happening to Jose Mourinho of late. He's lapsing into the kind of Portuguese moroseness you get from staring at the Atlantic horizon and imagining you're the last place in the world, while listening to endless renditions of the fado. His latest line about 'everyone hates us and we don't care' sounds like vintage Joe Kinnear in the great days of the Wimbledon Crazy Gang. ~ Peter Chapman

Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart. ~ Robert Browning

Yet every writer worth a good-god damn knows this too, for it is graven into each of us: no one cares for beauty. Not in fiction. Not on its own, not pure, untroubled beauty; not in fiction. [...] For here is the only real difference between the life of reality and the life of fiction. Fiction only works when the beauty is tainted by pain. For fiction is not about life; it's about the troubles of life. ~ Marcus Sedgwick

In a quip that makes the rounds, Jesus preached the coming of the kingdom, but it was the church that came. All these years later, the way many of us are doing church is broken and we know it, even if we do not know what to do about it. We proclaim the priesthood of all believers while we continue with hierarchical clergy, liturgy, and architecture. We follow a Lord who challenged the religious and political institutions of his time while we fund and defend our own. We speak and sing of divine transformation while we do everything in our power to maintain our equilibrium. If redeeming things continue to happen to us in spite of these deep contradictions in our life together, then I think that is because God is faithful even when we are not. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

Sometimes it is one step at a time, and things don't always work out the way we would like them to, but as you allow God to direct you He will bring you to a place of peace. ~ Anna Stevens

If the elect could perish then Jesus Christ should be very unfaithful to His Father because God the Father hath given this charge to Christ, that whomsoever He elected, Christ should preserve them safe, to bring them to heaven. John 6:39. ~ Christopher Love

Now you comprehend your first and final lover / in the dark receding planets of his eyes, / and this is the hour when you know moreover / that the god you have loved always / will descend and lie with you in paradise. ~ Gwendolyn MacEwen

And yet the ethos of the Sermon on the Mount, which is not just for the disciples but for everyone in the eschatological people of God, is just as radical, because it demands that one abandon not only evil deeds but every hurtful word directed at a brother or sister in faith (Matt 5:22). It demands regarding someone else's marriage (and of course one's own) as so holy that one may not even look with desire at another's spouse (Matt 5:27-28). It demands that married couples no longer divorce but remain faithful until death (Matt 5:31-32). It commands that there be no twisting and manipulation of language any more but only absolute clarity (Matt 5:37) and that one give to anyone who asks for anything (Matt 5:42). For a man's ~ Gerhard Lohfink

I bear my witness that the worst days I have ever had have turned out to be my best days. And when God has seemed most cruel to me he has then been most kind. If there is anything in this world for which I would bless him more than for anything else it is for pain and affliction. I am sure that in these things the richest tenderest love has been manifested to me. Our Father's wagons rumble most heavily when they are bringing us the richest freight of the bullion of his grace. Love letters from heaven are often sent in black-edged envelopes. The cloud that is black with horror is big with mercy. Fear not the storm. It brings healing in its wings and when Jesus is with you in the vessel the tempest only hastens the ship to its desired haven. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Prayer and dependence on God has been our history. How unfortunate it is now that an unaccountable and unelected and misguided judge from Wisconsin, Judge Barbara Crabb, has declared National Days of Prayer - established by the Congress - to be unconstitutional. ~ James Dobson

If you are praying to God for a good score in your science exam, then either your science teacher has utterly failed in teaching you or society has completely brainwashed you. ~ Rajesh`

When circumstances appear impossible, faith reminds us that apparent impossibilities are wondrous opportunities for God to move. ~ Cheryl Zelenka

I really loved the 'Sopranos' but didn't have HBO. So someone would send me tapes of the show with three or four episodes. I would watch one episode and go: 'Oh my God, I've got to watch one more.' I'd watch the whole tape and champ at the bit for the next one. ~ Ted Sarandos

And the years flow past, each of them as unremarkable as the next, as unnoticed as nanoseconds, in fact, not even long enough to contain anything noticeable – centuries just barely registered as moments in space/time. Soon the millennia are passing by at a modest rate of 47 per minute, and of course all manner of things noticeable and not-so-noticeable occur along the way (though most falling into the latter category). Naturally there come periods where lying is greatly rewarded, followed by periods where lying is greatly punished (our poor unlucky editor!), along with every other conceivable and inconceivable reversal and re-reversal of standards, and…

Wait, did anyone else just hear God yawn? ~ Arthur Graham

God measures people by the small dimensions of humility and not by the bigness of their achievements or the size of their capabilities. ~ Billy Graham

Never has a man proposed for himself, voluntarily or involuntarily, a goal more sublime, since this goal was beyond measure: undermine the superstitions placed between the creature and the Creator, give back God to man and man to God, reinstate the rational and saintly idea of divinity in the midst of this prevailing chaos of material and disfigured gods of idolatry. Never has a man accomplished in such a short time such an immense and long lasting revolution in the world. ~ Alphonse Lamartine

Our weaknesses may never go away but when we give them to God, His grace will turn them into something beautiful ... ~ Heather Bixler

As burned as I've been by local churches and by people who call themselves in God's name, Jesus gave us the church. It's supposed to be a community of like-minded people who encourage and strengthen each other. But that's not how it always works. ~ Anne Graham Lotz

Finally, Dageus finished, and she heard Gwen and Chloe say simultaneously, breathlessly, "Oh, my God."
Gabby opened her eyes.
Drustan had risen to his feet and was scowling, an expression mirrored by his twin. Both were glaring at Adam
whom they obviously could now see. Then at their wives, then back at Adam. ~ Karen Marie Moning

God calls us to have the strength to trust Him over our hopelessness and to let Him give us the strength to overcome what it is that we feel hopeless to. ~ Jeff Andras