Secular Quotes - Page 19

• Yes, all fundamentalists feel that in a secular society, God has been relegated to the margin, to the periphery and they are all in different ways seeking to drag him out of that peripheral position, back to center stage.

  Karen Armstrong

  Secular Society, Different, Way

  "Now" with Bill Moyers, www.pbs.org.

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• Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn't stack up against a two-millennium-old funeral high mass.

  E. O. Wilson

  Two, Funeral, Humanity

  "E.O. Wilson Is on Top of the World". Interview with Jill Neimark, www.psychologytoday.com. September 1, 1998.

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• Many things about American life, that even secular people consider good, have flowed from the presence of a robust, resilient institutional Christianity.

  Ross Douthat

  People, Christianity, Resilient

  Source: www.christianpost.com

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• Tragedy speaks not of secular dilemmas which may be resolved by rational innovation, but of the unalterable bias toward inhumanity and destruction in the drift of the world.

  George Steiner

  Innovation, Tragedy, World

  "The Death of Tragedy". Book by George Steiner, 1961.

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• If we look at the last decades, we see that the US rightist-fundamentalist alliance demonized partnership-oriented families and painted women's rights as a threat to "tradition" - which of course it is to traditions of domination. These people had an integrated political agenda that recognizes that a "traditional" authoritarian, male dominated, punitive family is foundational to an authoritarian, male dominated, punitive politics. We can see this connection in sharp relief in brutal top-down regimes, be they secular like Nazi Germany or religious like ISIS in the Middle East.

  Riane Eisler

  Religious, Top Down, Rights

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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• Whether one sees the world as God's creation or as a secular mystery that science is on the way to figuring out, there is no denying the beauty and majesty of everything from mountain ranges, deserts, and rain forests to the exquisite details in the design of an ordinary mosquito.

  Robert C. Solomon

  Rain, Mountain Ranges, Design

  Robert C. Solomon (2006). “Spirituality for the Skeptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life”, p.15, Oxford University Press

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• The missionaries of Christianity had said in effect: You have no right to live among us as Jews. The secular rulers who followed had proclaimed: You have no right to live among us. The German Nazis at last decreed: You have no right to live.

  Raul Hilberg

  Holocaust, Lasts, Christianity

  Raul Hilberg (1973). “The destruction of the European Jews”, Octagon Press, Limited

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• I don't see life divided into public and private, secular and sacred. It's all an open place of service before our God.

  Charles R. Swindoll

  Christian, Religion, Sacred

  Charles R. Swindoll (2007). “Wisdom for the Way: Wise Words for Busy People”, p.101, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• We're stuck. We're stuck between the East and the West. Between the past and the future. On the one hand there are the secular modernists, so proud of the regime they constructed, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the army and half of the state on their side. On the other hand there are the conventional traditionalist, so infatuated with the Ottoman past, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the general public and the remaining half of the state on their side.

  Elif Safak

  Army, Past, Hands

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• In a society where rationality has ruled so long, the church frequently fails to see that in forsaking the weekly pursuit of the transcendent, we have given up the only ground that was uniquely ours in this world. In attempting to make the church something that can attract and add value to secular mind-sets, we have turned our backs on our one true proposition - transcendence.

  James MacDonald

  Long, Mind, Church

  James MacDonald (2012). “Vertical Church: What Every Heart Longs for. What Every Church Can Be.”, p.34, David C Cook

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• What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland.

  Robert Pape

  Suicide, Military, Goal

  Robert Pape (2005). “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism”, p.4, Random House

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• A church determined to hold only those doctrines that a secular world finds adequately comprehensible is a church that will hold to no central vital Christian teaching whatsoever.

  Albert Mohler

  Christian, Teaching, Church

  FaceBook post by Albert Mohler from Nov 19, 2014

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• Today's secular libertarians, who want to remove biblical religion from public life, have trouble making sense of the civil rights movement because it was so clearly a religiously inspired movement that entered the public arena and made a major difference in American life.

  Bruce L. Shelley

  Christian, Religious, Biblical

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• The secular Jew is a figment; when a Jew becomes a secular person he is no longer a Jew.

  Cynthia Ozick

  Figments, Jew, Persons

  Cynthia Ozick (1983). “Art & ardor: essays”, Alfred A. Knopf

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• All rituals are paradoxical and dangerous enterprises, the traditional and improvised, the sacred and the secular. Paradoxical because rituals are conspicuously artificial and theatrical, yet designed to suggest the inevitability and absolute truth of their messages. Dangerous because when we are not convinced by a ritual we may become aware of ourselves as having made them up, thence on the paralyzing realization that we have made up all our truths; our ceremonies, our most precious conceptions and convictions - all are mere inventions.

  Barbara Myerhoff

  Realization, May, Sacred

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• By drop out, I mean to detach yourself from involvement in secular, external social games.

  Timothy Leary

  Mean, Games, Dropping Out

  Timothy Leary (1968). “The Politics of Ecstasy”

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• Oxford is a little aristocracy in itself, numerous and dignified enough to rank with other estates in the realm; and where fame and secular promotion are to be had for study, and in a direction which has the unanimous respect of all cultivated nations.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Respect, Oxford, Aristocracy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.354, Penguin

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• Knowledge has come to be defined as what can be proven by secular evidence and arguments.

  Roger E. Olson

  Argument, Evidence, Defined

  Roger E. Olson (2013). “The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction”, p.27, InterVarsity Press

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• I don't cling to earthly life because I believe in eternal life. That's the big distinction between my point of view and a purely secular position.

  Hans Kung

  Believe, Views, Bigs

  "Controversial Theologian Hans Kung: 'I Don't Cling to This Life'". Interview with Markus Grill, www.spiegel.de. December 12, 2013.

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• India is the most religious country in the world, Sweden is the most secular country in the world, and America is a country of Indians ruled by Swedes.

  Peter L. Berger

  Country, Religious, America

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• There came a time in my life when I doubted the divinity of the Scriptures, and I resolved as a lawyer and a judge I would try the Book as I would try anything in the courtroom, taking evidence for and against. It was a long, serious and profound study and using the same principles of evidence in this religious matter as I always do in secular matters, I have come to the decision that the Bible is a supernatural Book, that it has come from God, and that the only safety for the human race is to follow its teachings.

  Salmon P. Chase

  Religious, Book, Teaching

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• I grew up in a very artistic, cultured home, but without any kind of spirituality. My parents were secular materialists, so I saw art as having an alternate value.

  Daniel Pinchbeck

  Art, Home, Parent

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Truth is not obtained cheaply. It demands much time given to prayer and study of the Scriptures, followed by practical application in our daily lives. It must take priority over the many forms of cheap entertainment offered by our secular culture. It is a lifetime commitment.

  Derek Prince

  Prayer, Commitment, Priorities

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• The Soviet Union began by banishing God. The United States began as a community of people who wanted to worship God as they chose. . . Man does not live by bread alone. Those in the United States whose desire to create a strictly secular society is as strong as Lenin's was should study this Cold War lesson closely. Communism was defeated by an alliance spearheaded by 'one nation under God.'

  Richard M. Nixon

  Strong, War, Men

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• The episcopal church was destined, inevitably, to grow further and further away from the Christian teaching of poverty and denial of worldly goods. It became more like an additional arm of secular administration.

  Judith Herrin

  Christian, Teaching, Church

  "The Formation of Christendom". Book by Judith Herrin, 1987.

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