A disorderly spirituality that makes the practitioner dreamy, eccentric, or uncontrolled is a very bad sign indeed. In
Zionism was originally a rebellion against religious Judaism and the PLO Charter was essentially secularist. But because the conflict was allowed to fester without a resolution, religion got sucked in...
I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.
After I left the convent, for 15 years I was worn out with religion, I wanted nothing whatever to do with it. I felt disgusted with it. If I saw someone reading a religious book on a train, I'd think,...
The sacred reality is not simply transcendent, out there, but is enshrined in every single human being, who must, therefore, be treated with absolute honor and respect.
The attempt to become a compassionate human being is a lifelong project.
The anonymous Chinese author we know as Laozi pointed out that no matter how good his intentions, violence always recoils upon the perpetrator.
The Taliban travesty, a noxious combination of Deobandi rigidity, tribal chauvinism, and the aggression of the traumatized war orphan.
So Enlightenment philosophers developed a new form of theism, based entirely on reason and Newtonian science, which they called Deism.
So Enki tells Atrahasis to build a boat, instructing him about
Pre-Islamic period jahiliyyah, which is usually translated as the time of ignorance. But the primary meaning of the root JHL is irascibility—an acute sensitivity to honor and prestige, excessive arrog...
Philosopher Walter Benjamin put it: There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
Men and women were naturally prone to lie, steal, and murder, and these evil impulses could be forcibly held in check only by a strong, authoritative government.
Included: no religious doctrine or practice can be authentic if it does not lead to practical compassion.
Eminent monotheists in all three faiths—that instead of waiting for God to descend from on high, I should deliberately create a sense of him for myself.
Changed the course of history, but the process was not yet complete. It was only when Jesus returned at the Parousia that we shall all be changed and death be swallowed up in victory.64 Then and only...
Beliefs and doctrines are not as important in Islam as they are in Christianity. Like Judaism, Islam is a religion that requires people to live in a certain way, rather than to accept certain credal p...
As the philosopher Walter Benjamin put it: There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.24
You cannot be a hero unless you are prepared to give up everything; there is no ascent to the heights without a prior descent into darkness, no new life without some form of death. Throughout our live...
Yet despite my depression and my fear for the future, I could not quite succumb to the prevailing despair. The worst had happened, but that meant that I no longer had anything much to lose, and increa...