Secular Quotes - Page 6

• Whereas religions may serve a benign purpose by letting many people feel comfortable with the level of morality they themselves can attain, no religion holds its member to the high standards of moral responsibility that the secular world of science and medicine does!

  Daniel Dennett

  Responsibility, Medicine, People

  "Thank Goodness!" by Daniel C. Dennett, www.edge.org. November 2, 2006.

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• A lot of secular, modern people claim to be disillusioned whenever they learn that any smart person is religious. That's applicable to Newton as it is to any other religious smart person

  Neal Stephenson

  Religious, Smart, People

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• My own ongoing research among secular Americans-as well as that of a handful of other social scientists who have only recently turned their gaze on secular culture-confirms that nonreligious family life is replete with its own sustaining moral values and enriching ethical precepts.

  Phil Zuckerman

  Ongoing, Research, Culture

  "Do Godless Kids Turn Out All Right?" by Steve Mazie, bigthink.com.

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• To say that secular means irreligious implies that all the arts and sciences are irreligious, and is very like saying that all professions except that of the law are illegal.

  John Stuart Mill

  Art, Mean, Law

  John Stuart Mill (1988). “Collected works of John Stuart Mill”

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• The loss of objectivity in moral thought does not lead to liberation. It leads to oppression. Secular ideologies preach liberty, but they practice tyranny.

  Nancy Pearcey

  Loss, Objectivity, Practice

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• A church has the right to set its own standards within its community. I don't think it has a right to prohibit birth control or to enforce upon a secular society its conception of divorce and the indissolubility of the marriage tie.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Divorce, Thinking, Secular Society

  "The Mike Wallace Interview". www.hrc.utexas.edu. April 27, 1958.

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• With many countries on the verge of redefining a basic social institution, What Is Marriage? issues an urgent call for full deliberation of what is at stake. The authors make a compelling secular case for marriage as a partnership between a man and a woman, whose special status is based on society's interest in the nurture and education of children.

  Mary Ann Glendon

  Country, Children, Men

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• Preaching is compelling to young secular adults ...
  - not if preachers use video clips from their favorite movies and dress informally and sound sophisticated,
  - but if the preachers understand their hearts and culture so well that listeners feel the force of the sermon's reasoning, even if in the end they don't agree with it.

  Timothy Keller

  Heart, Sound, Adults

  Timothy Keller (2013). “Gospel Renewal: Center Church, Part Two”, p.74, Harper Collins

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• People in the secular world have too much to live with, too little to live for.

  Os Guinness

  People, World, Littles

  Os Guinness (2010). “The Last Christian on Earth: Uncover the Enemy's Plot to Undermine the Church”, p.225, Gospel Light Publications

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• Spiritual knowledge is like a house built in the midst of secular and pagan knowledge, in which there is laid up, like a solid and well-secured chest, the knowledge of the inspired Scriptures and the inestimable riches they contain. Those who enter into the house will never at all be able to see those treasures unless this chest is opened for them. But it does not belong to human wisdom (cf. I Cor. 2:13) ever to be able to open it, so that the riches of the Spirit deposited in it remain unknown to all who are worldly.

  Symeon the New Theologian

  Christian, Spiritual, Cfs

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• I first came up with the idea for the colour-chart pictures back in 1966, and my preoccupation with the topic culminated in 1974 with a painting that consisted of 4,096 colour fields. Initially I was attracted by the typical Pop Art aestheticism of using standard colour-sample cards; I preferred the unartistic, tasteful and secular illustration of the different tones to the paintings of Albers, Bill, Calderara, Lohse, etc.

  Gerhard Richter

  Art, Illustration, Ideas

  Gerhard Richter, Dietmar Elger, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (2009). “Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007”, Distributed Art Pub Inc

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• In many cases students are never exposed to competing ideas within their families, churches, or Christian schools, and as a result they go out into the world unprepared for the intellectual battles they are about to encounter, especially on secular college campuses.

  Nancy Pearcey

  Christian, School, College

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• Secular music was not allowed in our household.

  Paul Brandt

  Secular Music, Household

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• The difficulties of living in a secular risk culture are compounded by the importance of lifestyle choices.

  Anthony Giddens

  Lifestyle Choices, Risk, Culture

  Anthony Giddens (2013). “Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age”, p.188, John Wiley & Sons

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• This contest between the secular and religious visions of government is really the main choice to be made. It won't be decided in one election, but it is a basic choice between an open and progressive Iraq and one that is backward and continues to fall behind.

  Adnan Pachachi

  Religious, Fall, Iraq

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• The secular university is scandalized by the claims of revelation. Those who have, for whatever historical reasons, become seekers-on-principle, cannot tolerate the allegation that truth is a gift. To have to receive offends those who have determined to take.

  Louis Mackey

  Historical, Principles, Determined

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• Toppling secular dictators in the Middle East has only led to chaos and the rise of radical Islam.

  Rand Paul

  Islam, Middle East, Chaos

  Source: cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com

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• The best predictor of a woman's involvement in terrorism, whether it's a secular or religious group, is a relationship with a terrorist: her father, brother, husband or even her son. Terrorism becomes a bit of a family business.

  Mia Bloom

  Religious, Brother, Husband

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• 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

  Religious, Strong, Islamic

  Interview with Joseph Mayton, progressive.org. December 12, 2011.

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• In college, [Christian students] are assaulted by secular relativism, and if we don't prepare them, they will be like lambs led to slaughter.

  Charles Colson

  Christian, College, Lambs

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• I think, like Ronald Reagan, in another way, in a secular way, John Paul II was a great communicator, but he was also a man of deep conviction.

  Chris Matthews

  Men, Thinking, Way

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

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• Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in religious opinion. Time has at length revealed the true remedy. Every relaxation of narrow and rigorous policy, wherever it has been tried, has been found to assuage the disease.

  James Madison

  Religious, Blood, Differences

  James Madison (1819). “Religious Freedom. A memorial and remonstrance drawn by ... J. Madison, late President of the United States, ... against the general assessment in “a Bill establishing provision for the teachers of the Christian religion, presented to the General Assembly”, p.10

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• When the Chinese government tells its citizens that they can worship in a certain building on a certain day, but once they leave that building they must bow to the secular orthodoxy of the state, you have a cynical lie at work. They’ve substituted a toothless ‘freedom of worship’ for ‘freedom of religion’.

  Eric Metaxas

  Lying, Government, Cynical

  "Raising Good Men". Interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez, www.nationalreview.com. May 4, 2013.

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• My parents were secular. I am an atheist.

  Ben Elton

  Atheist, Parent

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• The Church is her true self only when she exists for humanity. As a fresh start, she should give away all her endowments to the poor and needy. The clergy should live solely on the freewill offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Offering, Self, Giving

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