Theology Quotes - Page 11

• To escape the power of the unknown, to prove to yourself that you don't believe in it, you accept its spells. Like an avowed atheist who sees the Devil at night, you reason: He certainly doesn't exist; this is therefore an illusion, perhaps a result of indigestion. But the Devil is sure that he exists, and believes in his upside-down theology. What, then, will frighten him? You make the sign of the cross, and he vanishes in a puff of brimstone.

  Umberto Eco

  Atheist, Believe, Book

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.171, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There is superstition in science quite as much as there is superstition in theology, and it is all the more dangerous because those suffering from it are profoundly convinced that they are freeing themselves from all superstition.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Suffering, Politics, Superstitions

  Theodore Roosevelt (2006). “History as Literature and Other Essays”, p.247, Cosimo, Inc.

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• This whole Christian theology thing is that god came down to experience life through his son. Well, how's he experiencing life if he doesn't get laid? Give me a break. And why would he not get laid, as he created the apparatus in the first place?

  Tori Amos

  Christian, Son, Giving

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• The spirit of dogmatic theology poisons anything it touches.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Atheism, Poison, Spirit

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• I think the opportunity to deal with students and getting them properly oriented on science and theology and the relation between those is going to be important because science has been such an instrument used by the materialists to undermine the Christian faith and religious belief generally.

  William A. Dembski

  Christian, Religious, Opportunity

  "Dembski to head seminary's new science & theology center". Jeff Robinson, Baptist Press, September 16, 2004.

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• There is a notion that complete impartiality is the most fitting and indeed the normal disposition for true exegesis , because it guarantees complete absence of prejudice. For a short time, around 1910, this idea threatened to achieve almost a canonical status in Protestant theology. But now, we can quite calmly describe it as merely comical.

  Karl Barth

  Ideas, Prejudice, Guarantees

  Karl Barth (2004). “Church Dogmatics: The doctrine of the word of God (2 pts.)”, p.469, A&C Black

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• Philosophy finds itself to be no longer anything but the heir to a fabulous mystical theology, but missing a God and wiping the slate clean.

  Georges Bataille

  Philosophy, Missing, Heirs

  "'L'Expérience Intérieure' ('Inner Experience')". Book by Georges Bataille, translated by Leslie Anne Boldt, p. 9, 1988.

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• Modern science gives lectures on botany, to show there is no such thing as a flower; on humanity, to show there is no such thing as a man; and on theology, to show there is no such thing as a God. No such thing as a man, but only a mechanism, No such thing as a God, but only a series of forces.

  John Ruskin

  Flower, Men, Giving

  John Ruskin (1918). “Selections and Essays”, Scholarly Press

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• I had a big event in my personal life. Then I reevaluated and started going to theology class, and then I found my husband.

  Ali Landry

  Husband, Class, Events

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• Over the centuries, and even today, the Bible and Christian theology have helped justify the Crusades, slavery, violence against gays, and the murder of doctors who perform abortions. The words themselves are latent, inert, harmless - until they aren't.

  Amy Waldman

  Christian, Gay, Doctors

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• If you expound the teaching of the Logos from the standpoint of the moral life, using materialistic words and examples which correspond to the capacity of your hearers, you make the Logos flesh. Conversely, if you elucidate mystical theology by means of the higher forms of contemplation you make the Logos spirit.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Teaching, Mean

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• The gospel preached during every television show is 'You only go around once in life, so get all the gusto you can.' It is a statement about theology; it is a statement about beer. It's lousy beer and even worse theology.

  John Silber

  Beer, Gusto, Television

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• The friends of evangelical doctrine, and the advocates of orthodoxy, have the following objects to keep ever in view in this age; they must take care of their Bibles, that they be not mutilated or curtailed by lawless criticism; they must take care of their theology, that it be not perverted by false philosophy; and they must take care of their pulpits, that they be not occupied by heretical, unspiritual, or incompetent ministers.

  John Angell James

  Philosophy, Views, Age

  John Angell James (1848). “An Earnest Ministry the Want of the Times”, p.16

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• Contemporary Christian proclamation is faced with the question whether, when it demands faith from men and women, it expects them to acknowledge this mythical world picture from the past. If this is impossible, it has to face the question whether the New Testament proclamation has a truth that is independent of the mythical world picture, in which case it would be the task of theology to demythologize the Christian proclamation.

  Rudolf Bultmann

  Christian, Independent, Past

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• The states of consciousness are all that psychology needs to do her work with. Metaphysics or theology may prove the Soul to exist; but for psychology the hypothesis of such a substantial principle of unity is superfluous.

  William James

  Soul, Psychology, Unity

  William James (1984). “Psychology, Briefer Course”, p.181, Harvard University Press

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• Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. Since the relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies, philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow.

  William James

  Philosophy, Mean, Men

  William James, John Dewey, John M. Capps, Donald Capps (2005). “James and Dewey on Belief and Experience”, p.114, University of Illinois Press

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• I firmly believe that the method which sets theological theories against scientifically ascertained facts, is fatal to the current theology and injurious to the spirit of religion; and that the method which frankly recognizes the facts of life, and appreciates the spirit of the scientists whose patient and assiduous endeavor has brought those facts to light, will commend the spirit of religion to the new generation, and will benefit--not impair--theology as a science, by compelling its reconstruction.

  Lyman Abbott

  Believe, Light, Appreciate

  Lyman Abbott (2009). “The Theology of an Evolutionist”, p.37, Cambridge University Press

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• Like all great theologies, Bill [O'Reilly]'s can be boiled down to one sentence: There must be a god, because I don't know how things work.

  Stephen Colbert

  Religion, Bills, Bill O Reilly

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• Liberty's chief foe is theology.

  Charles Bradlaugh

  Atheism, Liberty, Chiefs

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• Even if nothing worse than wasted mental effort could be laid to the charge of theology, that alone ought to be sufficient to banish it from the earth, as one of the worst enemies of mankind.

  Lydia M. Child

  Worst Enemy, Effort, Atheism

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• Unlike music or poetry or painting, food rouses no response in passionate and emotional youth. Only when the surge of the blood is quieted does gastronomy come into its own with philosophy and theology and the sterner delights of the mind.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Philosophy, Food, Emotional

  Dorothy L Sayers (2009). “The Documents in the Case”, p.39, Hachette UK

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• This is the purpose of theology. By it my life becomes clearer and more conscious.

  Dorothee Solle

  Purpose, Conscious

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• Governmental defense of any theology necessarily weakens the legitimacy of both the government and the theology.

  Taslima Nasrin

  Government, Defense, Legitimacy

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• Religion is about God's truth, but none of us can grasp that truth absolutely, because of our own imperfections and limitations. We are only children of God, not God. Therefore, we must not attempt to fit God into little boxes, claiming that He supports this or that political position. This is not only bad theology; it marginalizes God.

  Hillary Clinton

  Children, Support, Imperfection

  Hillary Rodham Clinton (2006). “It Takes a Village”, p.167, Simon and Schuster

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• So Marxism, Freudianism: any one of these things I think is an irrational cult. They're theology, so they're whatever you think of theology; I don't think much of it. In fact, in my view that's exactly the right analogy: notions like Marxism and Freudianism belong to the history of organized religion.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Views, Analogies

  Noam Chomsky (2013). “Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky”, p.227, The New Press

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