Yquotes.com

 

In my books I have lifted bits from various religions in trying to come to a better understanding; I've made use of religious themes and symbols. Now, as the world becomes more pagan, one has to lead people in the same direction in a different way.

 

Patrick White (Australian novelist)

» Patrick White (Australian novelist) - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

I have also never participated in any of the meetings of the various embryonic attempts at creating a "Pagan international", whether the Pagan Federation, the World Council of Ethnic Religions or the World Council of the Elders of the Ancient Traditions and Cultures. But I wish them all the best, for they consist mostly of nice people and I can easily see through the attempts by so-called secularists to blacken them and to deny to them the right of international networking which is deemed only natural in the case of Christians or Muslims.

 

Koenraad Elst

 

"Let me just stress that I'm not anti-religion. I know what it's like to be spiritual. I know what it's like to try and think of these things. Now after much deliberation in my thirty-second year of life, I feel that I am not religious. I feel secular and drawn to science. I don't believe. And I'm not saying that's good bad or indifferent. I am not better than anyone who believes. I realize the need in the human condition to feel that there is a being that does things for you and will take care and all that kind of thing. I understand it. I respect you for it. So the thing that kills me though when it comes to religion is very few religious people will refuse to allow you to have your opinion. They will boycott you, they will write a letter, they are allowed to scream from the mountain tops what they believe in. You are not allowed that same thing, you are just wrong, that's all there is to it. It's interesting that when you come from that perspective and you think about what's going on in the world geopolitically and religious-wise whether it's the Taliban fighters, the Muellas, the protestants, the Irish, the Israeli Palestinian conflict. If you are not religious you kind of see it as just insanity and I realize that their issues are not just religious based, but they are about sovereignty and things of that nature but it all goes back to the fact that these seeds were planted on these books. The books of religions which are beautiful works of fiction. They're just lovely. I mean somebody's a great writer. I-- You don't have to applaud that I'm just saying these guys are great writers these guys who wrote and added addendums to suit their fancies and made arbitrary rules these guys are great writers, but the important thing being that we keep the women in the back seat. That's the main gist of all religions because we're scared of the vagina. Somehow it all leads to fear of the vagina. I can hear the typewriters clicking as we speak. So the thing is if you see these books this way and I respect that you may not see them that way, it's like as if in this country we were fighting over Grisham novels, or we had declared the Bridges of Madison County sacred ground whereupon nobody builds. Nobody builds."

 

Janeane Garofalo

 

Constantine fostered an atmosphere of religious liberty ... Since it favored all religions equally, the edict expressed a policy of religious liberty, not toleration...All should try to share the benefits of their religious understanding with others, but no one should force his or her truth upon another. … (for according to Constantine)..."it is one thing acting with free will to enter into contest for immortality, another to compel others to do so by force through the fear of punishment. No one should greatly trouble another, rather, everyone should follow what his soul prefers...This edict is a paradigmatic statement of concord. … Since Constantine hopes that common fellowship and the persuasion "of those who believe" will lead everyone freely to choose (what he called) the straight path, he indicates his wish that religious unity will ultimately evolve.

 

Constantine the Great

 

This is the "apophatic" tradition, in which nothing about God can be put into words. Armstrong firmly recommends silence, having written at least 15 books on the topic. Words such as "God" have to be seen as symbols, not names, but any word falls short of describing what it symbolises, and will always be inadequate, contradictory, metaphorical or allegorical. The mystery at the heart of religious practice is ineffable, unapproachable by reason and by language. Silence is its truest expression. The right kind of silence, of course, not that of the pothead or inebriate. The religious state is exactly that of Alice after hearing the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky": "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas — only I don't exactly know what they are." … Armstrong is not presenting a case for God in the sense most people in our idolatrous world would think of it. The ordinary man or woman in the pew or on the prayer mat probably thinks of God as a kind of large version of themselves with mysterious powers and a rather nasty temper. That is the vice of theory again, and as long as they think like that, ordinary folk are not truly religious, whatever they profess. By contrast, Armstrong promises that her kinds of practice will make us better, wiser, more forgiving, loving, courageous, selfless, hopeful and just. Who can be against that?
The odd thing is that the book presupposes that such desirable improvements are the same thing as an increase in understanding — only a kind of understanding that has no describable content. It is beyond words, yet is nevertheless to be described in terms of awareness and truth.

 

Karen Armstrong

 

The religion of the Sufi is not separate from the religions of the world. People have fought in vain about the names and lives of their saviors, and have named their religions after the name of their savior, instead of uniting with each other in the truth that is taught. This truth can be traced in all religions, whether one community calls another pagan or infidel or heathen. Such persons claim that theirs is the only scripture, and their place of worship the only abode of God. Sufism is a name applied to a certain philosophy by those who do not accept the philosophy; hence it cannot really be described as a religion; it contains a religion but is not itself a religion. Sufism is a religion if one wishes to learn religion from it. But it is beyond religion, for it is the light, the sustenance of every soul, raising the mortal being to immortality.

 

Inayat Khan