The Quote Thread.

[zumby]

“Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.”
― Charles Lamb, The Life, Letters and Writings of Charles Lamb

[zumby]

Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa. - William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith

[EnlightenedRaise]

Marcel Proust

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

[EnlightenedRaise]

Peter Matthiessen

"Soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions.
Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego.
Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn.
The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise.
After that day, we become seekers."

[zumby]

“Beside them shall be girls clad in darkness for a garment, and they shall be seriously punished and their flesh shall be torn in pieces. These are they who did not preserve their virginity until they were given in marriage and with these torments shall they be punished and shall feel them.
“And again, other men and women, gnawing their tongues without ceasing, and being tormented with everlasting fire. These are the servants who were not obedient to their masters; and this then is their judgment for ever.”

-Apocalypse of Peter

[Splendour]

Theophilus of Antioch to Autolycus an Idolater and Scorner of Christians

Chapter 2 of his work To Autolycus: That the Eyes of the Soul Must Be Purged Ere God Can Be Seen.

But if you say, “Show me your God,” I would reply, “Show me yourself, and I will show you my God.” Show, then, that the eyes of your soul are capable of seeing, and the ears of your heart able to hear; for as those who look with the eyes of the body perceive earthly objects and what concerns this life, and discriminate at the same time between things that differ, whether light or darkness, white or black, deformed or beautiful, well-proportioned and symmetrical or disproportioned and awkward, or monstrous or mutilated; and as in like manner also, by the sense of hearing, we discriminate either sharp, or deep, or sweet sounds; so the same holds good regarding the eyes of the soul and the ears of the heart, that it is by them we are able to behold God. For God is seen by those who are enabled to see Him when they have the eyes of their soul opened: for all have eyes; but in some they are overspread, and do not see the light of the sun. Yet it does not follow, because the blind do not see, that the light of the sun does not shine; but let the blind blame themselves and their own eyes. So also you, O man, have the eyes of your soul overspread by your sins and evil deeds. As a burnished mirror, so ought man to have his soul pure. When there is rust on the mirror, it is not possible that a man's face be seen in the mirror; so also when there is sin in a man, such a man cannot behold God. Do you, therefore, show me yourself, whether you are not an adulterer, or a fornicator, or a thief, or a robber, or a purloiner; whether you do not corrupt boys; whether you are not insolent, or a slanderer, or passionate, or envious, or proud, or supercilious; whether you are not a brawler, or covetous, or disobedient to parents; and whether you do not sell your children; for to those who do these things God is not manifest, unless they have first cleansed themselves from all impurity. All these things, then, involve you in darkness, as when a filmy defluxion on the eyes prevents one from beholding the light of the sun: thus also do iniquities, man, involve you in darkness, so that you cannot see God.

[zumby]

And I asked him and said, “Who are these, sir, immersed up to their knees in fire?” He answered and said to me, “These are they who when they have gone out of church occupy themselves with idle disputes.

- Apocalypse of Paul

[NotReady]

Woody Allen - Sleeper

Do I believe in God? I'm what you would call a teleological existential atheist. I believe that there's an intelligence to the universe with the exception of certain parts of New Jersey.

[Dominic]

Originally Posted by zumby

Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa. - William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith

What utter nonsense.

[Sommerset]

Originally Posted by zumby

Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa. - William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith

Isn't he implicitly admitting here that faith will, at least occasionally, fall to argument and evidence? If not, what is the point of even stating this?

[Andrey-man]

Driving shotgun along Lake Tahoe after waking up from a cardrive pretty long with my buddy eric cotto in the drivers seat and adam stoldal in the rear i murmeled:


' Isn't mountain dew supposed to keep you wake!? '

[Hitch-22]

"Don't feel embarrassed if you've never heard of William Lane Craig. He parades himself as a philosopher, but none of the professors of philosophy whom I consulted had heard his name either. Perhaps he is a "theologian". For some years now, Craig has been increasingly importunate in his efforts to cajole, harass or defame me into a debate with him. I have consistently refused, in the spirit, if not the letter, of a famous retort by the then president of the Royal Society: "That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine".

-Richard Dawkins

[Splendour]

N.T. Wright in a blogalogue to Bart Ehrman:

"Underneath a lot of this I resonate with a line from Bonhoeffer that has haunted me ever since I heard it as a student: that the primal sin of humanity, as in Genesis 3, is to put the knowledge of good and evil before the knowledge of God. This could just be a shrug of the shoulders (‘Who am I to understand such mysteries?’), but it could and I think should be something more and richer: a recognition that the sort of creatures we are are never going to be in a position to set a moral bar and insist that God – if there is a creator God – jump over it. It is like recognising that the telescope I have, while very good at enabling me to see the moon, Jupiter, Saturn and other glories, won’t ever let me see a black hole, or several other things that the high-energy physicists and astronomers tell me are there. The instrument in question – my creaturely and innately rebellious humanity – can’t pick up the full mysteries of God and the world. Of course, there is continuity between God’s view of good and evil and ours, or it would be chaos come again. But we are never in a position to judge God (if God there be). That’s not a pious platitude, but a rather obvious ontological reality."

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/blogalogue...#ixzz1xjjgGGXQ

[NotReady]

Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility

... a very few hours spent in the hard labor of incessant talking will despatch more subjects than can really be in common between any two rational creatures ...

[Splendour]

"Jesus did not believe, however, that one could be saved by apologetic evidence alone. He understood the difference between belief that, which requires evidence, and belief in, which involves an act of the will. He knew evidence was the ground for belief that something is true, but he also knew that evidence alone was not sufficient to produce belief unto salvation."

Norman L. Geisler and Patrick Zukeran, The Apologetics of Jesus