[I]t is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.
Could there be any doubt that the Jews would seek to harm the Son of God again, knowing that his body was now readily accessible in the form of defenseless crackers?
Scholars note that human reasoning is limited not only by imperfect information and innate intellectual capacities but also by the broader culture that subsequently shapes the very optics that individuals use to categorize the world.
Faith is the mortar that fills the cracks in the evidence and the gaps in the logic, and thus it is faith that keeps the whole terrible edifice of religious certainty still looming dangerously over our world.
Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name.
She spoke with the usual cadences of the young: sentences curling upward at the end, all statements fading into a smoky, implied question mark, as though nothing could be said with any reasonable certainty.
We are all human, and our senses are quicker to prompt us than our reason. Every man gives off a scent, and that scent tells you how to act before your head does.
You know, there's a reason we can remember," [Catarina] said more softly. "That's much easier when your life has an expiration date." "It may be more important for us.
People have been cooking and eating for thousands of years, so if you are the very first to have thought of adding lime juice to scalloped potatoes try to understand there must be a reason for this.
You called me at four thirty-four....I hate four thirty-four. I think four thirty-four should be banned and replaced with something more reasonable, like, say, nine twelve.
Do you realize that a middle-class couple, one archaeologist, one dolls' expert, can't move from their house because ancient spirits are blocking them in? It's a reasonable sort of day's experience, isn't it?
And perhaps we have reason to be very grateful that, both as children and long afterwards, we are never allowed to guess how the absorbing pursuit of the moment will appear, not only to others, but to ourselves, a very short time hence.
Modernity gone wrong has isolated humanity and made human reason autonomous of (and dismissive toward) revelation.
But understand that the reason it is so difficult to extend forgiveness to those who have failed us is because we are unable to receive forgiveness for our own failures.
The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.
The presence of pain should not be the reason for your low self-image. Boldness is the ability to stand tall even when the valley seems deep. Your pain will bring gain. Just believe and go to work!
Which would give her an ulcer first? All the aspirin and prescription pain medication she took, or Jack Carlton? Then again, that left only one cause, since he was the reason she needed the drugs to begin with.
I decide to order wine, despite the fact that I don’t like it. But just because I don’t enjoy it is no reason for me not to not enjoy it. I’m romantic like that, I guess.
Tonight I want to stand on the side of a cliff and look down, dare the wind to gust and knock me off. Everyone thinks that falling to your death is the worst thing that can happen. But that’s a lie. The worst thing is to be alive for no reason.
Misuse of reason might yet return the world to pre-technological night; plenty of religious zealots hunger for just such a result, and are happy to use the latest technology to effect it.
I should say upfront that I have never been in a cellar in my life. In fact, I can see no reason why anyone should ever go into a cellar unless there is wine involved.
