Religious Reform Quotes

The fallacy of the socialists37 lies in supposing that because in the present stage of European society property as a source of power is predominant, the same is true of India, or the same was true of Europe in the past. Religion, social status, and property are all sources of power and authority which one man has to control the liberty of another. One is predominant at one stage; the other is predominant at another stage. That is the only difference. If liberty is the ideal, and if liberty means the destruction of the dominion which one man holds over another, then obviously it cannot be insisted upon that economic reform must be the one kind of reform worthy of pursuit. If the source of power and dominion is, at any given time or in any given society, social and religious, then social reform and religious reform must be accepted as the necessary sort of reform. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

All that is deformed ought to be reformed. The Word of God alone teaches us what ought to be so, and all reform effected otherwise is vain. ~ Francis Lambert

We can't say, "Listen, you barbarians: These holy books of yours are filled with murderous nonsense. In the interest of getting you to behave like civilized human beings, we're going to redact them and give you back something that reads like Kahlil Gibran. There you go ... Don't you feel better now that you no longer hate homosexuals?" However, that's really what one should be able to do in any intellectual tradition in the twenty-first century. ~ Sam Harris

Sports represent a shared vision of how we continue, as individual, team, or community, to experience a happiness or absence of care so intense, so rare, and so fleeting that we associate their experience with experience otherwise described as religious or we say the sports experience must be the tattered remnant of an experience which was once described, when first felt, as religious. ~ A. Bartlett Giamatti

A simpler form of the same objection consists in saying that death ought not to be final, that there ought to be a second chance. I believe that if a million chances were likely to do good, they would be given. ~ C.S. Lewis

With an agenda dominated by global security and U.N. reform, it appears that the decisions needed to lift millions of people from abject poverty are not being given the prominence they deserve. ~ Kumi Naidoo

It [Christian Social Party] recognized the value of large-scale propaganda and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological instincts of the broad masses of its adherents. ~ Adolf Hitler

WHY PARADIGMS MATTER

Ideas drive results. People's beliefs drive their actions.

Actions that stem from a simple, complete and accurate paradigm result in personal fulfillment, harmonious relationships, and economic prosperity.

Actions based on false, incomplete and inaccurate paradigms, however well intended or passionately defended, are the cause of widespread misery, suffering and deprivation.

As detailed in Rethinking Survival: Getting to the Positive Paradigm of Change, a fatal information deficit explains the worldwide leadership deficit and related budget deficits.
In a dangerous world where psychological and economic warfare compete with religious extremism and terrorism to undo thousands of years of incremental human progress, a healing balance is urgently needed.

Restoring a simple, complete and accurate paradigm of leadership and relationships now could make the difference between human survival on the one hand, and the extinction of the human race (or the end of civilization as we know it), on the other. p. 7. ~ Patricia E. West

Tolerance and freedom of thought are the veritable antidotes to religious fanaticism. ~ Baron D'Holbach

The scientific-religious conflict ultimately is a conflict between allegiance to this method and allegiance to even an irreducible minimum of belief so fixed in advance that it can never be modified. ~ John Dewey

I welcome the Democrats' ideas on Social Security. I think it is very important to make a bipartisan reform. ~ Jack Kingston

Perhaps even "his own people" - this time not the Jewish people of the first century, but the would-be Christian people of the Western world - have not been ready to recognize Jesus himself. We want a "religious" leader, not a king! We want someone to save our souls, not rule our world! Or, if we want a king, someone to take charge of our world, what we want is someone to implement the policies we already embrace, just as Jesus's contemporaries did. ~ N. T. Wright

Religious men often think about death, and Abelard had given some thought to his last words. "I told you so" had not been on the list. The ~ Max Gladstone

There is a growing wave in this country of fear, and of intolerance which springs from fear. Sometimes it is a religious intolerance, sometimes it is a racial intolerance, but all intolerance grows from the same roots. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

A few years before his death in 1934 the great Algerian Sheikh, Ahmad al-'Alawi, became friendly with a Frenchman, Dr. Carret, who had been treating him for various minor ailments. One day Carrett tried to explain his agnosticism to the Sheikh, adding, however, that what most surprised him was that people who did claim to be religious 'should be able to go on attaching importance to this earthly life'. After a pause, the Sheikh said to him: 'It is a pity that you will not let your spirit rise above yourself. But whatever you may say and whatever you may imagine, you are nearer to God than you think'. In this confused age in which we now find ourselves there may be many a believer who is a kafir under the skin, and many a kafir who is closer than he knows to the God in whom he thinks he does not believe.

It is important to be aware of these paradoxes because the distrust of religion - or at least of 'organized religion' - which is so widespread in the Western world, derives less from intellectual doubts than from a critical judgement of the way in which religious people are seen to behave. The agnostic does not concern himself with the supernatural dimensions of religion, let alone with ultimate truth. He sees only that part of the iceberg which is visible above the surface, and he judges this to be misshapen. The whole sad story is summed up in the wise child's prayer: 'Lord, please make good people religious and make religious people good'. ~ Charles Le Gai Eaton

What Does It Matter What We Believe, as long as we treat others the way we want to be treated? ~ Jeffrey A. White

That man is a religious being, is universally conceded, for it has been seen to be universally true. ~ Simon Greenleaf

My language and my sensibility are yearning to admit a kind of religious or transcendent dimension. But then there's the reality: there's no Heaven, no afterlife of the sort we were promised, and no personal God. ~ Seamus Heaney

There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over. ~ Frank Zappa

Our people have proven their desire for continuing with reforms. We complete the march today with those who have an honest patriotic desire for more progress and reform. ~ Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa

I think they probably got it on, Jesus and Mary Magdalene. ~ Madonna Ciccone

In the United States there is a unique blend of patriotism indoctrination from the pulpit which blends establishment controls into the religious ideology. This way, to question the establishment is to question God, therefore one's patriotism and salvation is contingent on their submission to the state. ~ James Scott, Senior Fellow, The Center For Cyber Influence Operations Studies

We don't need the gospels, we need the fiery men who wrote them! ~ Rudolfo Anaya

Political truth is libel; religious truth, blasphemy. ~ William Hazlitt

What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos. ~ Albert Einstein

Like it or not, war (cold or hot) is the most powerful funding driver in the public arsenal. Lofty goals such as curiosity, discovery, exploration, and science can get you money for modest-size projects, provided they resonate with the political and cultural views of the moment. But big, expensive activities are inherently long term, and require sustained investment that must survive economic fluctuations and changes in the political winds. In all eras, across time and culture, only war, greed, and the celebration of royal or religious power have fulfilled that funding requirement. Today, the power of kings is supplanted by elected governments, and the power of religion is often expressed in nonarchitectural undertakings, leaving war and greed to run the show. Sometimes those two drivers work hand in hand, as in the art of profiteering from the art of war. But war itself remains the ultimate and most compelling rationale. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Freedom has only the meaning with which men endow it. It is not enough to pay lip service to the concept of religious liberty. We must pay heart service to it as well, else it remains an empty phrase instead of a living reality. ~ Kenneth Keating

It seems to me that the greatest triumph of any human rights movement, be it fighting for racial, religious, sexual or gender equality – is to achieve that moment where eyes are opened so wide that a sort of blindness sets in. I don't care if someone is black, white, gay or straight. I don't care if a woman has children or no – I just want to know who they are. [...] At the end of the day, gender differences seem to me to be just a tiny, tiny drop in the great expanse of things that make people unique. Unique, not 'different', not 'other' merely another piece of that great teaming mass that makes up the wonderfully rich, thrillingly varied definition of 'humanity'."

[Playing Butch: Blog entry, February 24, 2014] ~ Kate Griffin

Self proclamation of authoritative titles is a common phenomenon among religious and/or occult sect leaders. A cursory survey of this primarily 20th century phenomenon will instantly reveal a multitude of self-declared Masters, High Priests, gurus, Ipsissimi, Bhaghwani, etc.. I am pleased that I cannot count myself among such types. Legitimate religious teachers and scholars know that a genuine spiritual leader is one whose calling to lead is first noticed by those outside of him or herself based on certain qualities, abilities, and actions and then must subsequently be accepted by the individual in question as his or her destiny. This contrasts with those whose will to lead is born simply out of the mundane wish to be a leader. In such cases the goal being to reap the rewards a title brings without the hard work and the innate, manifest qualities which validate the position; in short what might be considered a 'false prophet'."

--"From the Eye of the Storm" (Zeena's column for the SLM) Volume II – Winter Issue (2003): "One Year Later... ~ Zeena Schreck

The reasoning isn't crazy. It's technically correct. If you're being true to the idea that government must not take positions on religious questions, then the Ninth Circuit opinion is quite persuasive. ~ Jack Balkin

Those who wish to cause religious conflict are small in number but often manage to dominate the headline. ~ Tony Blair

I promise you, ABBA will never reform - I couldn't bear the stress of disappointing everyone. ~ Bjorn Ulvaeus

Capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois