That many good men have believed this strange fable [Christianity], and lived very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is what I have no doubt of. In the first place, . There are also many who have been so enthusiastically enr...
If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take...
As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinly scattered in those books [the Bible], they make no part of this pretended thing, revealed religion. ; and are nearly the same in all religions, and in all societies. The Testament teache...
I have shown in all the foregoing parts of this work that the Bible and Testament are impositions and forgeries; and I leave the evidence I have produced in proof of it to be refuted, if any one can do it; and I leave the ideas that are suggested in ...
I have always had a special affinity for libraries and librarians, for the most obvious reasons. I love books. (One of my first Jobs was shelving books at a branch of the Chicago Public Library.) Libraries are a pillar of any society. I believe our l...
Faint black stubble shadowed his jaw, indicating he was a bedtime shaver, not a morning man. She remembered the feel of that stubble. Against her throat. Her breasts, The inside of her thighs. --- He followed her back into the hall and then into her ...
Jennings saw this and held the gun up with his fingers splayed placatingly as if to show her that he wasn’t planning on using it. Not yet, anyway. “I don’t want to hurt you again, Lily,” he told her. “So just make sure you don’t do anythi...
You have to love and respect your body, just as you must love and respect your soul, before you can truly love and respect the bodies and souls of those you care for. Of course the body itself is no matter to Heaven for the same reason that matter is...
YOU DON’T KNOW IF YOUR IDEA IS ANY GOOD the moment it’s created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not as easy as the optimists say it is. There’s a reason why ...
Gradually it became known that the new race had a definite purpose, and that purpose was to chart and possess the whole country, regardless of the rights of its earlier inhabitants. Still the old chiefs cautioned their people to be patient, for, said...
Michael doesn't flinch. 'You can't know,' he says quietly, 'how much you truly love something until it's gone.' 'That's not fair,' I say as I tremble. 'No one said it would be. He tests you, Benji, and he tests Calliel for a supremely simple reason. ...
If outside forces and culture were the reasons behind declining and non-influential churches, we would likely have no churches today. The greatest periods of growth, particularly the first-century growth, took place in adversarial cultures. We are no...
Going home means going back in time. It's not a trip you care to take alone, and anyway, isn't that the main reason to take a mate? So you have an ally in the civil war against your parents?
The reasons why institutions fail and societies change are complex, and simplistic explanations should evoke automatic suspicion. Sometimes external causes - droughts, plagues or foreign invasions - can unsettle a nation, or its leadership may prove ...
Vaughn folded his arms. ‘The reason why you’ve lasted longer than most of your erstwhile colleagues is because you don’t do drama. I don’t like drama. I get enough drama at home. My wife could teach the RSC a few things about drama.' For some...
Maxwell Arbus was the reason Saul lost an eye?" "Yes," Millie answers stiffly. "But that was a long time ago. Saul has moved on. So have I." Whatever checks I'd held on my emotions shatter. "Moved on?!" Whirling around, I storm at Millie, waving my a...
But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that ...
The Islamic intellectual tradition has usually not seen a dichotomy between intellect and intuition but has created a hierarchy of knowledge and methods of attaining knowledge according to which degrees of both intellection and intuition become harmo...
In this one terrified moment, my mind couldn’t focus on any of it. “I’ve forgotten everything.” “No, you haven’t.” His voice in the darkness was calm and reassuring. He smoothed back my hair and pressed one of those half kisses to my fo...
We Pashtuns love shoes but don't love the cobbler; we love our scarves and blankets but do not respect the weaver. Manual workers made a great contribution to our society but received no recognition, and this is the reason so many of them joined the ...
Even if I could live forever,” she said to the baby, “I still don’t know which way I would teach you. I was once so free and innocent. I too laughed for no reason." “But later I threw away my foolish innocence to protect myself. And then I ta...
