Religious Meaning Quotes

But we as a culture have lost the deep intuitive understanding that Creation exists on many levels. We have succumbed to the scientific viewpoint. Nothing characterizes 'the modern world' more completely than the loss of faith in Transcendence, our arrogant lack of any genuine appreciation for levels of reality above our little everyday affairs. The deepest wounds to the human soul have been caused by our lack of appreciation of levels. By shutting the door on transcendence, we have cut off any light from that world that might have illuminated this one, leaving us in darkness,leaving us with nothing but a dead world where scientists are merely performing an autopsy. ~ Andrew Cort

If the aim is to keep "Christ" in the shopping-mall Christmas or to ensure that pagan trees and mistletoe don't lose their Christian labels, then it might make sense to attack presidents and business owners who commit the "happy holiday" sin. But if the goal is to restore the religious meaning of the Christian holy day, then they are aiming at the wrong Target. ~ Charles Haynes

The perspective changes completely when the sense of the religiousness of the Cosmos becomes lost. This is what occurs when, in certain more highly evolved societies, the intellectual élites progressively detach themselves from the patterns of the traditional religion. Periodical sanctification of cosmic time then proves useless and without meaning. The gods are no longer accessible through the cosmic rhythms. The religious meaning of the repetition of paradigmatic gestures is forgotten. But repetition emptied of its religious content necessarily leads to a pessimistic vision of existence. When it is no longer a vehicle for reintegrating a primordial situation, and hence for recovering the mysterious presence of the gods, that is, when it is desacralized, cyclic time becomes terrifying; it is seen as a circle forever turning on itself, repeating itself to infinity. ~ Mircea Eliade

Nothing that is historical can relate itself, from its own ground, to anything messianic. Therefore, the Kingdom of God is not the telos of the historical dynamic; it cannot be established as a goal. From the standpoint of history, it is not the goal but the terminus [Ende]. Therefore, the secular order cannot be built on the idea of the Divine Kingdom, and theocracy has no political but only a religious meaning. ~ Walter Benjamin

In the religious myths, the creative will appears personified in God, and man already feels himself guilty when he assumes himself to be like God, that is, to ascribe this will to himself. In the heroic myths on the contrary, man appears as himself, creative and guilt for his suffering and fall is ascribed to God, that is, to his own will. Both are only extreme reaction phenomena of man wavering between his Godlikeness and his nothingness, whose will is awakened to the knowledge of its power and whose consciousness is aroused to terror before it. ~ Otto Rank

What could be more fundamental to our sense of meaning and purpose than a conception of whether the strivings of the human race over long stretches of time have left us better or worse off? How, in particular, are we to make sense of modernity - of the erosion of family, tribe, tradition, and religion by the forces of individualism, cosmopolitanism, reason, and science? ~ Steven Pinker

Old religious factions are volcanoes burned out; on the lava and ashes and squalid scoriae of old eruptions grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine and the sustaining corn. ~ Edmund Burke

The Salafists are trying to abort the revolution and make it religious, though the revolution started secular. There was not a single Islamic slogan. 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. ~ Nawal El Saadawi

One day while studying a Yeats poem I decided to write poetry the rest of my life. I recognized that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character, and events of one's own life. I still feel surprised that such various substances can find shelter and nourishment in a poem. A poem in fact may be a sort of nourishing liquid, such as one uses to keep an amoeba alive. If prepared right, a poem can keep an image or a thought or insights on history or the psyche alive for years, as well as our desires and airy impulses. ~ Robert Bly

I used to think fate was for religious nuts and people who were too afraid to take their fate into their own hands. Now I know the truth. ~ Cassia Leo

To survive is not enough. To simply exist... is not enough!' - Roga Danar ~ Emily St. John Mandel

No nations are more warlike than those which profess Christianity. ~ Pierre Bayle

Mr. Speaker, a new report says only 7% of scientists believe in God. That is right. And the reason they gave was that the scientists are "super smart". Unbelievable. Most of these absent-minded professors cannot find the toilet. ~ James Traficant

This world's no blot for us,
Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:
To find its meaning is my meat and drink. ~ Robert Browning

You need a boyfriend. Well sure, who doesn't need a boyfriend? But ealistically, those exotic creatures are hard to come by. At least a quality one. I go to an all- girls school, and meaning no disrespect to my sapphic sisters, but I have no interest in nding a romantic companion there. The rare boy creatures I do meet who aren't either related to me or who aren't gay are usually too at ached to their Xboxes to notice me, or their idea of how a teenage girl should look and act comes directly from the pages of Maxim magazine or from the tarty look of a video game character. ~ Rachel Cohn

Words don't change their shape, they change their meaning, their function ... They don't have a meaning of their own any more, they refer to other words that you don't know, that you've never read or heard ... you've never seen their shape, but you feel ... you suspect ... they correspond to ... an empty space inside you ... or in the universe ... ~ Marguerite Duras

I guess we don't know what's real or unreal,' she had said without meaning to. 'You stare at anything long enough and suddenly it looks monstrous. ~ Anne Rice

Unlike all other founders of a religious faith, Christ had no selfishness, no desire of dominance; and His system, unlike all other systems of worship, was bloodless, boundlessly beneficent, and
most marvelous of all
went to break all bonds of body and soul, and to cast down every temporal and every spiritual tyranny. ~ Alfred William Howitt

Bodies are visible hieroglyphs. Every body is an erotic metaphor, and the meaning of all these metaphors is always the same: death. ~ Octavio Paz

The bloodiest, most brutal wars fought, all based on religious hatred. Which is fine with me! Any time a bunch of holy people want to go out and kill each other I'm a happy guy! ~ George Carlin

Like most people born into a religious tradition, my faith was as familiar to me as my skin, and just as disregardable. ~ Reza Aslan

At 1:23pm Zeros were approaching Pearl Harbor where it was 7:53am. At that moment the flight commander radioed Admiral Nagumo TORA, TORA, TORA@ The repeated code word, meaning "tiger," stood for 'We have succeeded in surprise attack'." Two minutes later torpedo bombers began diving on Battleship Row. ~ John Toland

The meaning of life ... I think the meaning of life is, I think it's love. ~ Julie Benz

The Kingdom of Heaven is within and it lies beyond your wildest imagination, so expect a roller coaster ride to get there! ~ Carl Painter

Choosing colours should not be a gamble. It should be a conscious decision. Colours have a meaning and a function. ~ Verner Panton

The Point, not unlike the Communist Chinese, the ACLU abhors individual religious freedom, and it supports only those civil liberties that fit its narrow political agenda. ~ Mark Hyman, M.D.

Values are principles and ideas that bring meaning to the seemingly mundane experience of life. A meaningful life that ultimately brings happiness and pride requires you to respond to temptations as well as challenges with honor, dignity, and courage. ~ Laura Schlessinger

The man - god - could control the weather, for God's sake. Annnd now that phrase took on a whole new meaning. ~ Laura Kaye

Some people's lives would drastically change if they would obey God as strictly as they obey their doctors. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

It was then that I realized that while playing the well-meaning tolerant individual (in short: liberal) garnered you fans and grades, it didn't matter. In my heart and head, I was a fraud. ~ Greg Gutfeld

The individual (no matter how well-meaning he might be, no matter how much strength he might have, if only he would use it) does not have the passion to rip himself away from either the coils of Reflection or the seductive ambiguities of Reflection; nor do the surroundings and times have any events or passions, but rather provide a negative setting of a habit of reflection, which plays with some illusory project only to betray him in the end with a way out: it shows him that the most clever thing to do is nothing at all. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

There is no hidden meaning to life ... looking for one is our problem solving brain chasing its tail ~ Alan Alda

The first nation to separate Christianity from government produced perhaps the most religious nation on earth. ~ Philip Yancey

Asking, "If there is no God, what is the purpose of life?" is like asking, "If there is no master, whose slave will I be?" If your purpose of life is to submit as a slave, then your meaning comes from flattering the ego of a person whom who should detest. ~ Dan Barker

Power deities, for all their strength, are very much like humans, They are subjects to periods of despair and are not free from the crippling consequences of emotions, For over two decades Tibetans were forbidden from holding any religious ceremonies or prayers. No prayer flags, incense or ceremonies were offered to the deities and demi-gods of the region. This neglect broke their hearts and they became bedraggled and weak. ~ Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

Our manic accumulation of wealth,' Kuru Qan went on. 'Our headlong progress, as if motion was purpose and purpose inherently virtuous. Our lack of compassion, which we called being realistic. The extremity of our judgements, our self-righteousness - all a flight from death, Brys. All a vast denial smothered in semantics and euphemisms. Bravery and sacrifice, pathos and failure, as if life is a contest to be won or lost. As if death is the arbiter of meaning, the moment of final judgement, and above all else judgement is a thing to be delivered, not delivered unto. ~ Steven Erikson

I was trained from the beginning to work, to save. I have always regarded it a as a religious duty to get all I could honorably and to give all I could. ~ John D. Rockefeller

Then, what is sacrelige [sic]? If it is nothing more than a rebellion against dogma, it is eventually as meaningless as the dogma it defies, and they are both become hounds ranting in the high grass, never see the boar in the thicket. Only a religious person can perpetrate sacrelige: and if its blasphemy reaches the heart of the question; if it investigates deeply enough to unfold, not the pattern, but the materials of the pattern, and the necessity of a pattern; if it questions so deeply that the doubt it arouses is frightening and cannot be dismissed; then it has done its true sacreligious [sic] work, in the service of its adversary: the only service that nihilism can ever perform.
(unused 1949 prefatory note to The Recognitions) ~ William Gaddis