Secular Quotes - Page 21

• Britain, relative to the U.S., is a highly secular society. Philanthropy alone cannot fill the gap left by government cutbacks. And the sources of altruism go deep into our evolutionary past.

  Jonathan Sacks

  Past, Secular Society, Government

  "Celebrating Faith, Altruism And Our Modern Community" by Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 5, 2011.

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• Europe today is the most secular region in the world. Europe is the only region in the world experiencing population decline. Wherever you turn today the more religious the community, the larger on average are their families.

  Jonathan Sacks

  Religious, Average, Europe

  "Falling birth rate is killing Europe, says chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks" by Riazat Butt, www.theguardian.com. November 5, 2009.

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• Saddam Hussein was not an Islamist. He's not a radical jihadist. He's not a radical Muslim. I mean, he was a - he was a Baathist. He was a secular - even though he professed to be a good and devout Muslim.

  Rick Santorum

  Mean, Hussein, Radical

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• A Muslim fanatic and a Christian fanatic, a Jewish fanatic, a secular fanatic, an atheist fanatic, a communist fanatic - all of them are the same. The thinking that, 'If you don't think like me, that if you are not with me, then you are against me;' this is something to condemn.

  Marjane Satrapi

  Christian, Atheist, Thinking

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• Flawed as they may be, science and the secular Enlightenment values expressed in Western democracies are our best hope for survival.

  Michael Shermer

  Survival, Democracy, Enlightenment

  Michael Shermer (2012). “The Believing Brain: From Spiritual Faiths to Political Convictions – How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths.”, p.122, Hachette UK

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• So in my freshman year at the University of Alabama, learning the literature on evolution, what was known about it biologically, just gradually transformed me by taking me out of literalism and increasingly into a more secular, scientific view of the world.

  E. O. Wilson

  Views, Years, Alabama

  "Transcript of the complete E.O. Wilson interview". blog.cleveland.com. March 01, 2009.

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• The reason Buddhism can be so naturalised is because, stripped of its supernatural elements, its core teachings can be giving a sound, secular philosophical interpretation. In other words, it becomes a religion acceptable to the contemporary, naturalistic mind only when it ceases to be a religion.

  Julian Baggini

  Teaching, Philosophical, Buddhism

  "Can a religion survive being stripped of its superstitions?" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. February 9, 2012.

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• There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Sacred, Messages, Incarnation

  Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, p.45, Convergent Books

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• Basically there can be no categories such as 'religious' art and 'secular' art, because all true art is incarnational, and therefore 'religious.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Religious, Art, Categories

  Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, p.24, Convergent Books

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• I illustrate with a quotation from the atheist philosopher Richard Rorty, who died recently and is, I suspect, now having a lengthy conversation with his maker. Rorty argued that secular professors ought “to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own.

  Richard Rorty

  Religious, Atheist, College

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• One can't understand the Christian Right and similar movements unless one sees them as reactive - they're reacting to what they call secular humanism

  Peter L. Berger

  Christian, Movement, Reacting

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• Not only did secular scientists rout the Christian fundamentalists, they placed themselves in the posture of knowing more, on the basis of their own very short-term investigations, than the collective remembrances of the rest of humankind.

  Vine Deloria Jr.

  Christian, Knowing, Remembrance

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• I really do think that art can save you in some sense. It's the last meaning, unless you're religious-and I'm not religious. It's the only secular vehicle for transcendence we have. It's an immediate self-validating experience. It lifts you beyond your mortal clay.

  Sam Savage

  Religious, Art, Thinking

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• The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.

  M. H. Abrams

  Biblical, Enlightenment, Philosopher

  "Honored literary scholar M.H. Abrams continues his labors (of love)". Interview with Linda Grace-Kobas, news.cornell.edu. June 11, 1999.

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• The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Church, Ordinary, Helping

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2011). “Letters Papers from Prison”, p.162, Simon and Schuster

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• Real love is always fated. It has been arranged before time. It is the most meticulously prepared of coincidences. And fate, of course, is simply a secular term for the will of God, and coincidence for His grace.

  Mike Mason

  Real, Fate, Love Is

  Mike Mason (1985). “Mystery of Marriage: Meditations on the Miracle”, Multnomah

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• Differ though we might with Christianity's view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis, which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one-that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.

  Alain de Botton

  Religious, Atheist, Journey

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• It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships.

  Alain de Botton

  Atheist, People, Priorities

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• Recent decades clearly demonstrate that the more secular our Public Schools become the less successful they become academically.

  David Barton

  Education, School, Successful

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• Secular writers can tell a story about the physical, the emotional, and the intellectual parts of a character. But no matter how well they tell the story, they miss a facet that is innately part of all of us - the spiritual.

  Karen Kingsbury

  Spiritual, Character, Emotional

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• From time to time I have wished to do more work in philosophy of religion, but the demands and challenges have been such that it needed more work than I had time for. I sneaked a chapter into my book on loyalty that touched on some issues in the area. Maybe in the future I will try responding to Philip Kitcher's excellent critique: Life After Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism - it gets closer to me than much of what is produced in the field.

  John Kleinig

  Loyalty, Philosophy, Book

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• The ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation, a nation that is legally and culturally biased against Christianity.

  Ron Paul

  Religious, America, Goal

  "The War on Religion" by Ron Paul, www.lewrockwell.com. December 30, 2003.

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• We need to find secular ways to cultivate warm-heartedness. We need secular ways to educate ourselves about inner values. The source of a happy life is within us. Trouble makers in many parts of the world are often quite well educated, so it is not just education that we need. We need to pay attention to inner values.

  Dalai Lama

  Happy Life, Needs, Attention

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• The Book of Revelation has all the authority, in these theological uplands, of military orders in time of war. The people turn to it for light upon all their problems, spiritual and secular.

  H. L. Mencken

  Spiritual, Military, War

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• There will never be peace until God's house and God's people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world. How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top. .... There is absolutely no way that government can operate successfully unless led by godly men and women operating under the laws of the God of Jacob

  Pat Robertson

  Religious, Atheist, Godly

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