beliefs

All religions lead to the same God, and all deserve the same respect. Anyone who chooses a religion is also choosing a collective way for worshipping and sharing the mysteries. Nevertheless, that person is the only one responsible for his or her actions along the way and has no right to shift responsibility for any personal decisions on to that religion.

Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis.

In religion and politics people__ beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle.

I'd like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.

If your beliefs are not useful to you, or they are not bringing you peace and abundance, update them!

Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness but their essential strength.

It is no coincidence that so many religious beliefs date back to times when no science could possibly have accounted satisfactorily for many of the natural phenomena inspiring scripture and myths.

Diversity of character is due to the unequal time given to values. Only through each other will we see the importance of the qualities we lack and our unfinished soul's potential.

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

It is in the nature of the human mind to give in, and hold on, to the source of solace with all the might it can muster. Life is hard and any figure that tends to ease the subjective perception of that hardship, attains a high pedestal of utmost reverence in the realm of the individual mind. It all takes place at a molecular level in the human brain with the purpose of self-preservation.

Spirituality isn't some quaint stepchild of an intelligent worldview, or the only option for those of us not smart enough to understand the facts of the real world. Spirituality reflects the most sophisticated mindset, and the most powerful force available for the transformation of human suffering.

If you truly have faith in your convictions, then your convictions should be able to stand criticism and testing.

Regardless of your faith, you can never escape uncertainty.

Faith requires following the power of a whisper.

Elder mocked me for praying once, and i spent an hour berating him for that. He ended up throwing up his hands, laughing, and telling me i could believe whatever i wanted if i was going to hold onto my beliefs so hard.

I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organised religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptised.

Doubt everything. Find your own light.