religion 2 - worship - God
    

True religion is the life we live,
not the creed we profess.

J.F. Wright

  

This is what I found out about religion:  it gives you courage to make the decisions you must make in a crisis and the confidence to leave the results to a higher Power. Only by trust in God can a person carrying responsibility find repose.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

      

Science and religion, religion and science, put it as I may, they are two sides of the same glass, through which we see darkly until these two, focusing together, reveal the truth.

Pearl Buck

  

Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.

Paul Tillich


We have been looking for the burning bush, the parting of the sea, the bellowing voice from heaven.  Instead we should be looking at the ordinary day-by day events in our lives for evidence of the miraculous.

M. Scott Peck

   

I believe in God as I believe in my friends, because I feel the breath of His affections, feel His invisible hand, drawing me, leading me, grasping me; because I possess an inner consciousness of a particular Providence and of a universal mind that marks out for me the course of my own destiny.

Miguel de Unamuno

   

The only struggle which religions can justify, the only struggle worthy of
humans, is the moral struggle against humanity's own disordered passions,
against every kind of selfishness, against attempts to oppress others,
against every type of hatred and violence.

Pope John Paul II

   

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There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like
about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be
good and kind to person and beast, it is all a sham.

Anna Sewell

  
Religion is never devoid of emotion, any more than love
is.  It is not a defect of religion, but rather its glory,
that it speaks always the language of feeling.


Elton Trueblood
  

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the
servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

  

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Albert Einstein

  

People will wrangle for religion, write for it,
fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.

Charles Caleb Colton

  

Religion should be our steering wheel, not our spare tire.

Charles L. Wheeler

  

The heart of Religion is not an opinion about God,
such as  philosophy might reach as the conclusion
of an argument; it is a personal relationship with God.


William Temple

  
No person has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget
in one's own ease the service due one's neighbor; nor has any person
a right to be so immersed in active life as to neglect the contemplation of God.

St. Augustine

   

Depending on the use to which it is put, religion can be a demonic
force.  Religion should bring us together, but it is exploited by some
to create greater schisms among us.  Nothing could be more
unfortunate.  Religion must always be for the people.  People do not
exist for the sake of religion.  This must be the fundamental guideline
of religion in the twenty-first century.

Daisaku Ikeda
Buddhism Day by Day

  

  

Religion exists not to answer all questions, or to clear up all mysteries;
if that were its purpose, it could never be accomplished, for life grows,
not less, but more mysterious as the intellect enters more fully into its truth. . .
Religion leaves a million questions unanswered and apparently unanswerable.
Its purpose and object is not to make people certain and cock-sure about everything,
but to make them certain about those things of which they must be certain
if they are to live a human life at all. Religion does not relieve us
from the duty of thought; it makes possible for a person to begin thinking.

G.A. Studdert-Kennedy

religion 2 - worship - God

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery
than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

  

Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty.  It survives
on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

   

During the past thirty years, people from all civilized countries on the earth
have consulted me. Among all my patients in the second half of life--
that is to say, over thirty-five--there has not been one whose problem
in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.
It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he or she had lost that which
the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them
has been really healed who did not regain his or her religious outlook.

Carl Jung

 

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Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report;
if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

The Bible

  

Love and kindness are the basis of my religious beliefs.  The rituals
and outward signs are not as important as one's actions and deeds.
Religion should be a path to God, not something to fight about.

Bernie Siegel

  

I also see the world of religion. I see some of my brothers and sisters
trying to be religious without being fully human.  They seem a little
rigid and narrow at times, wanting to be holy, but not human.  They
seem to be winning a place in heaven, without realizing or enjoying
the beauty of earth. They keep the ten commandments, but their
observances look so joyless.  Such a world seems small
and the air in that world is stale.

John Powell, S.J.

  

 

Religion does not blithely promise some sort of no-trouble, no-problem,
no-poverty world; but rather a spirit, a power, an enthusiasm that
endows everyone with the ability to overcome any and all of it.

Norman Vincent Peale

  

Religion is doing; we do not merely think our religion or feel it,
we "live" our religion as much as we are able, otherwise it
is not religion but fantasy or philosophy.

George L. Gurdjieff

  

If a religion does not teach love, respect, and regard for others,
it cannot be the religion of humanity.

Muktananda

 
Articles and book excerpts on religion:

A Worn-Out Creed     Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  
The religious mind does not function from a center of authority, whether
it is accumulated knowledge as tradition, or it is experience—which is
really the continuation of tradition, the continuation of conditioning.  The
religious spirit does not think in terms of time, the immediate results, the
immediate reformation within the pattern of society. . . We said the
religious mind is not a ritualistic mind; it does not belong to any church,
to any group, to any pattern of thinking.  The religious mind is the mind
that has entered into the unknown, and you cannot come to the unknown
except by jumping; you cannot carefully calculate and enter the unknown.
The religious mind is the real revolutionary mind, and the revolutionary mind
is not a reaction to what has been.  The religious mind is really explosive,
creative—not in the accepted sense of the word creative, as in a poem,
decoration, or building, as in architecture, music, poetry, and all the rest
of it—it is in a state of creation.

Jiddu Krishnamurti
The Book of Life:  Daily Meditations
   

I never told my religion nor scrutinized that of another.  I never attempted
to make a convert nor wished to change another's creed.  I have judged
of others' religion by their lives, for it is from our lives and not from
our words that our religion must be read.

Thomas Jefferson

  

Whenever violence is done in the name of religion, we must make it
clear to everyone that in such instances we are not dealing with true religion.

Pope John Paul II

   

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religion 2 - worship - God

We have just enough religion to make us hate,
but not enough to make us love one another.

Jonathan Edwards
    

The essential thing to know about God is that God is Good.  All the rest is secondary.

Simone Weil

   

Before you speak to me about your religion, first show it to me
in how you treat other people; before you tell me how much you
love your God, show me in how you love all His children; before
you preach to me of your passion for your faith, teach me about
it through your compassion for your neighbors.  In the end I'm
not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as in
how you choose to live and give.

Cory Booker

   
  
Religion, in one way or another, has always been with us.  Religion will
continue to always be with us.  What needs to be discarded and thrown
away is the ecclesiastical rubbish which binds us to religion instead of God.

Shantidasa
  

Religion is a bridge to the spiritual--but the spiritual lies beyond religion.
Unfortunately, in seeking the spiritual we may become attached
to the bridge rather than crossing over it.

Prabhushri

  

Religion, wherever it exists, spreads over the whole of life.  One
cannot take it up as one takes up golf--by giving it a couple of
afternoons a week.  That kind of amateur religion is not religion.
Religion is either the whole of one's life, or else it is not religion,
no matter how much fuss is made over it.

Gregory Vlastos

  
Any true religious practice is to see once again that which is already
so:  to see the fundamental unity of all things, to see our true face.  It’s
to remove the barrier between ourselves and another person or another
thing:  to remove or to see through the nature of the barrier.

Charlotte Joko Beck
Everyday Zen: Love and Work
   

     
    

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Yes, life can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's actually rather dependable and reliable.  Some principles apply to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning.  I use it a lot when I teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.  What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or generous, compassionate or arrogant?  In this book, I've done my best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life, writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.  Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too!
Universal Principles of Living Life Fully.  Awareness of these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration out of the lives we lead.