#lief

What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demonstrated nor refuted? (176) ↗

— Stephen Batchelor

#belief #disbelief #metaphysics #reality #theism

I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve. ↗

— Montesquieu

#stress-relief #trouble #stress

I'm not a believer in predetermined fates, being rewarded for one's efforts. I'm not a believer in karma. The reason why I try to be a good person is because I think it's the right thing to do. If I commit fewer bad acts there will be fewer bad acts, maybe other people will join in committing fewer bad acts, and in time there will be fewer and fewer of them. ↗

— Daniel Handler

#fate #goodness #karma #karma

It is the philosophers, theologians, and evangelists who are said to be filled with pride and bigotry due to the strong convictions that they represent. On the contrary, teachings can be either taken or dismissed; whereas voting is the only thing the average person can do to force everyone to live how they would prefer. A simple vote is among the largest yet most acceptable forms of bigotry, and that is because people play the card only when they feel that in doing so it conveniences themselves. ↗

— Criss Jami

#bigotry #convenience #convictions #evangelists #hypocrisy

We all ought to understand we're on our own. Believing in Santa Claus doesn't do kids any harm for a few years but it isn't smart for them to continue waiting all their lives for him to come down the chimney with something wonderful. Santa Claus and God are cousins. ↗

— Andy Rooney

#atheism #belief #beliefs #god #gods

Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. ↗

— Yann Martel

#believe #believer #believing #god #life

If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves. ↗

— Thomas Paine

#tolerance #tolerance

[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. ↗

— Sam Harris

#delusion #faith #harris #religion #sam

Do not believe anything merely because you are told it is so, because others believe it, because it comes from Tradition, or because you have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect. Believe, take for your doctrine, and hold true to that, which, after serious investigation, seems to you to further the welfare of all beings. (47) ↗

— Jean-Yves Leloup

#belief #believe #doctrine #teachers #teaching

Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#imagination #writing #writing-life #imagination