Read through the most famous quotes by topic #wil
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is the belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. ↗
It's not enough, is it? Just to follow; just to have faith in someone bigger and smarter and better informed. That's how we're built, that's how every Partial is wired - to follow orders and trust in our leaders - but it's not enough. It never has been. We've followed our leaders, and sometimes they win and sometimes they lose; we do what they say and we play our part. But this is our decision. Our mission. And when we're done, it will be our victory, or our defeat. I don't want to fail, but if I do, I want to be able to look back and say, 'I did that. I failed. That was all me. ↗
Meg,” he whispered. “It wouldn’t be real love if there weren’t the possibility for another response to him. If we couldn’t choose not to love him, then our love would be empty. That’s why there’s evil in this world, because there’s free choice in this world. He allows the one to prove the other. ↗
Yes, our Father has a plan, Ciminae,” he said. “But he leaves it up to his children to accept his will. It is their agency. He cannot force his will upon them. If he did, he would cease to be God. They . . . we must choose for ourselves to accept his will with unbreakable faith in our Father. That is when the Father moves us to do his will.” (The Spirit. From Book 2, "Worlds Without End: Aftermath," coming September 1, 2012) ↗
The cure for our modern maladies is dirt under the fingernails and the feel of thick grass between the toes. The cure for our listlessness is to be out within the invigorating wind. The cure for our uselessness is to take back up our stewardship; for it is not that there has been no work to be done, we simply have not been attending to it. ↗
#cure #faith #god #l-m-browning #meaning
It took a couple of months before we were both convinced there were no rules about sexual activities in Hell and our spouses were not going to show up out of the blue. It was hard to start a sexual relationship in circumstances of such bizarre uncertainty, especially for an active Mormon and a good Christian, both lost in a Zoroastrian Hell. We were like virgin newlyweds. All my life I’d been raised to believe this kind of thing was wrong. All my life I had lived with a strong sense of morality. How do you give it up? How do you do things you thought you’d never do? Where do all the things you believed go, when all the supporting structure is found to be a myth? How do you know how or on what to take a moral stand, how do you behave when it turns out there are no cosmic rules, no categorical imperatives? It was difficult. So tricky to untangle. ↗
Blue believes the harmony to be motivated by self-interest. There is a resurgence of faith these days, a growing belief in organized religion, grace, damnation, heaven and hell. People treat each other kindly now, thinks Blue, because they hope to escape God's wrath. Blue does not believe in damnation and has trouble empathizing with those who do. In her fifty-two years, she has found no hard evidence, no scientific proof to convince her of God's existence. She considers herself an atheist. ↗
Sometimes when you lose your way, you find YOURSELF. ↗
#destination #destiny #faith #faith-in-yourself #find-yourself
During a torrential downpour, a faithful churchgoer hears a knock on his door. He opens it to find a policeman. “The river is flooding and we’re evacuating the area,” the policeman tells him. “Come with me.” The man replies, “Thank you, Officer, but I have faith that God will take care of me.” And he shuts the door. A few hours later, with water lapping at his front steps, he hears another knock. This time it’s a rescue worker in a large truck, who tells him, “The water is rising, but I can get you out of here.” The man again politely declines. “I’m a true believer and I trust that God will take care of me.” A few hours later, with water up to the gutters, the man is crouched on his roof. A fellow in a boat pulls up. “Come on! I’ll help you to higher ground,” the boater calls out. Once more, the man refuses, declaring that his faith in God is all of the help he needs. The next morning, the water has risen so that the man has only the top of his chimney on which to stand. A helicopter pilot spots him. Hovering above, he lowers a rope ladder and calls out, “Grab on! I’ll save you!” The man waves the helicopter on. Shivering and alone, the man says loudly, “My faith in God will keep me safe.” Not surprisingly, the man drowns, and he finds himself at the gates of heaven. He’s ushered into God’s presence, but his faith is shaken and he doesn’t speak. Finally, God addresses him: “What troubles you, my son?” The man replies, “Well, I lived a life of true faith. I attended church regularly. I volunteered at the soup kitchen. I contributed to charities. When faced with troubles, I proclaimed that faith rather than complain. I believed that You would take care of Your faithful. So why did you let me drown?” God is silent for a moment. Finally, He grabs the man by the shoulders and shakes him, yelling, “I sent you a policeman, a truck, a boat and a helicopter! What were you waiting for?! ↗
