Secular Quotes - Page 22

• Differ though we might with Christianity's view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis, which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one-that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.

  Alain de Botton

  Religious, Atheist, Journey

  7 Copy quote

• Real love is always fated. It has been arranged before time. It is the most meticulously prepared of coincidences. And fate, of course, is simply a secular term for the will of God, and coincidence for His grace.

  Mike Mason

  Real, Fate, Love Is

  Mike Mason (1985). “Mystery of Marriage: Meditations on the Miracle”, Multnomah

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I really do think that art can save you in some sense. It's the last meaning, unless you're religious-and I'm not religious. It's the only secular vehicle for transcendence we have. It's an immediate self-validating experience. It lifts you beyond your mortal clay.

  Sam Savage

  Religious, Art, Thinking

  15 Copy quote

• India is a vibrant nation whose strength lies in its commitment to equal rights and to speech, religious and economic freedoms that enrich the lives of all citizens. India is not only the world's largest democracy; it is also a secular, pluralistic society committed to inclusive growth.

  Henry Paulson

  Religious, Lying, Commitment

  4 Copy quote

• The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.

  M. H. Abrams

  Biblical, Enlightenment, Philosopher

  "Honored literary scholar M.H. Abrams continues his labors (of love)". Interview with Linda Grace-Kobas, news.cornell.edu. June 11, 1999.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• The imminent demise of the church has been predicted since the middle of the 18th century. This is the regular secular mantra if churchgoing declines. I could take you to plenty of churches that are full to bursting and new churches being built.

  N. T. Wright

  Church, Demise, Century

  "N.T. Wright: On Jesus and Writing". Interview with Marcia Z. Nelson, www.publishersweekly.com. November 23, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Church, Ordinary, Helping

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2011). “Letters Papers from Prison”, p.162, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

  Matthew Parris

  Christian, Spiritual, Atheist

  28 Copy quote

• One can't understand the Christian Right and similar movements unless one sees them as reactive - they're reacting to what they call secular humanism

  Peter L. Berger

  Christian, Movement, Reacting

  87 Copy quote

• Not only did secular scientists rout the Christian fundamentalists, they placed themselves in the posture of knowing more, on the basis of their own very short-term investigations, than the collective remembrances of the rest of humankind.

  Vine Deloria Jr.

  Christian, Knowing, Remembrance

  55 Copy quote

• Britain, relative to the U.S., is a highly secular society. Philanthropy alone cannot fill the gap left by government cutbacks. And the sources of altruism go deep into our evolutionary past.

  Jonathan Sacks

  Past, Secular Society, Government

  "Celebrating Faith, Altruism And Our Modern Community" by Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 5, 2011.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Book of Revelation has all the authority, in these theological uplands, of military orders in time of war. The people turn to it for light upon all their problems, spiritual and secular.

  H. L. Mencken

  Spiritual, Military, War

  4 Copy quote

• The church is only a secular institution in which the half-educated speak to the half-converted.

  William Ralph Inge

  Church, Half, Speak

  8 Copy quote

• The truth is, the secular world isn't too enamored with Jesus. And they're not too enamored with someone who is leading people to Jesus. So if you're out there talking about people's sins, and you're talking about righteousness, you will get pushback. Jesus Himself did. The apostles did. I mean, there's persecution all up and down the line.

  Pat Robertson

  Jesus, Mean, Talking

  "Pat Robertson: A Life, A Legacy, Part 1". Interview with Lee Webb, www.cbn.com.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a war of light vs. darkness, of Christ vs. antichrist, the Word of God vs. secular humanism. There will be a winner and a loser!.. There is no compromise with the enemy. There is no neutrality in this war!

  John Hagee

  War, Light, Darkness

  45 Copy quote

• I enter a most earnest plea that in our hurried and rather bustling life of today we do not lose the hold that our forefathers had on the Bible. I wish to see the Bible study as much a matter of course in the secular colleges as in the seminary. No educated man can afford to be ignorant of the Bible, and no uneducated man can afford to be ignorant of the Bible.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Bible, College, Men

  8 Copy quote

• God, once imagined to be an omnipresent force throughout the whole world of nature and man. has been increasingly tending to seem omniabsent. Everywhere, intelligent and educated people rely more and more on purely secular and scientific techniques for the solution of their problems. As science advances, belief in divine miracles and the efficacy of prayer becomes fainter and fainter.

  Corliss Lamont

  Prayer, Intelligent, Men

  9 Copy quote

• Secular humanism proposes ... the complete implementation of the agenda of modernism ... what is necessary for it to occur is a ... New Enlightenment.

  Paul Kurtz

  Enlightenment, Atheism, Agendas

  8 Copy quote

• In contemporary society secular humanism has been singled out by critics and proponents alike as a position sharply distinguishable from any religious formulation. Religious fundamentalists in the United States have waged a campaign against secular humanism, claiming that it is a rival "religion" and seeking to root it out from American public life. Secular humanism is avowedly non-religious. It is a eupraxsophy (good practical wisdom), which draws its basic principles and ethical values from science, ethics, and philosophy.

  Paul Kurtz

  Religious, Philosophy, Roots

  6 Copy quote

• The secular world looks to the church and to its chagrin, finds no love, no life, no laughter, no hope and no happiness.

  Rod Parsley

  Laughter, Church, Looks

  Rod Parsley (2009). “Culturally Incorrect: How Clashing Worldviews Affect Your Future”, p.29, Thomas Nelson Inc

  46 Copy quote

  Show source

• Torrents of blood have been spilt in the world in vain attempts of the secular arm to extinguish religious discord, by proscribing all differences in religious opinions.

  James Madison

  Religious, Blood, Differences

  James Madison, Virginia. General assembly, 1785 (1828). “A memorial and remonstrance, on the religious rights of man; written in 1784-5, at the request of the religious society of Baptists in Virginia. ...”, p.9

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• If a person is homosexual by nature - that is, if one's sexuality is as intrinsic a part of one's identity as gender or skin color - then society can no more deny a gay person access to the secular rights and religious sacraments because of his homosexuality than it can reinstate Jim Crow.

  Jon Meacham

  Religious, Gay, Rights

  61 Copy quote

• The clerical system of church management is exceedingly popular, but the whole thought is foreign to Scripture. In a church all the members are active. He [God] appointed some to take oversight of the work so that it might be carried on efficiently. It was never His thought that the majority of the believers should devote themselves exclusively to secular affairs and leave church matters to a group of spiritual specialists.

  Watchman Nee

  Spiritual, Church, Majority

  10 Copy quote

• Self-righteousness and presumptive moral judgments pose a great danger in the political arena. To become convinced of the divine infallibility of one's personal predilections on a secular political issue is to play God, to assume to oneself the attributes of deity. It cultivates an arrogant intolerance of dissenting viewpoints and relegates one's political adversaries to the category of evil per se.

  Jim Wright

  Self, Play, Issues

  9 Copy quote

• Perhaps in the world's destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Ocean, Silence, Mountain

  Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Road”, p.293, Pan Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source