Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism, by intuition. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology, and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories, and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascism. —Benito Mussolini

"What is the cause, and cure of moral relativism? The real source of moral relativism is not any argument at all, and therefore its cure is not any refutation of an argument. Neither philosophy nor science nor logic nor common sense nor experience have ever refuted traditional moral absolutism. It is not reason, but the abdication of reason that is the source of moral relativism. Relativism is not rational, it is rationalization. It is not the conclusion of a rational argument. It is the rationalization of a prior action. It is the repudiation of the principle that passions must be evaluated by reason and controlled by will. That is the virtue Plato and Aristotle called self-control. It is not just one of the cardinal virtues, but a necessary ingredient in every virtue. That classical assumption is almost the definition of civilization. But romanticists, existentialists, Freudians, and many others have convinced many people in our culture that it is oppressive and unhealthy and inauthentic. If we embrace the opposite principle, and let passion govern reason, rather than reason govern passion, there is little hope for morality or for civilization."

Peter Kreeft

“Yeah, it’s true we’re all dealt a set of cards. But it’s also true that it’s up to us to figure out how to play the hand.”
― Francis S. Collins



“Will we turn our backs on science because it is perceived as a threat to God, abandoning all the promise of advancing our understanding of nature and applying that to the alleviation of suffering and the betterment of humankind? Alternatively, will we turn our backs on faith, concluding that science has rendered the spiritual life no longer necessary, and that traditional religious symbols can now be replaced by engravings of the double helix on our alters?

Both of these choices are profoundly dangerous. Both deny truth. Both will diminish the nobility of humankind. Both will be devastating to our future. And both are unnecessary. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate and beautiful - and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles. And only we can end them.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief


“There were long stretches of DNA in between genes that didn't seem to be doing very much; some even referred to these as "junk DNA," though a certain amount of hubris was required for anyone to call any part of the genome "junk," given our level of ignorance.”

― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

"Sinners cannot be tempted: only true children of God can be. Rain cannot touch a body already under water."


"Temptation is not a sign of weakness or leaning toward the world. Rather, it is a graduation, a sign God trusts us. The Spirit led Jesus into the arena of temptation in the wilderness so he could learn the secret of power over all temptation. Actually God was saying to Jesus, "Son, I have given You the spirit without measure. I have confirmed You before the world. Now I am going to permit Satan to throw at you every device he has, to tempt you with his most potent enticements. I will do this so you will never once fear his dominion, so You may go forth, preaching the kingdom, with faith that Satan is defeated; and You will know that he cannot touch you in any way."



"Satan is just like the Wizard of Oz, who uses all kinds of scary devices to frighten unenlightened people. What a horror show he puts on: a tinseled display of power, strength and dominion. But God knows it's all feeble noise and phoniness. Behind the stage is a weak wizard: the insignificant, powerless, bespectacled little bald-headed creature pushing buttons and pulling levers. Who in his right mind, knowing the mighty power of God, could but laugh at Satan's puny sideshow?

When we are tempted it is God's way of saying to us "Satan is powerless, he is not what he claims to be. He wears a false mask and shoots out fiery darts that fizzle and die in the presence of truth. But you must discover this yourself. Go into his circus. Stand up to his cheap threats, then conquer your fear of him. He will not scare you; he will not expose weakness in you. He cannot make you do anything. Instead you will discover his weakness. You will expose him as a phony wizard. Then he will flee from you, because he doesn't want you to share with anyone else the secret you have learned."


David Wilkerson, from his chapter "How to Win Over Temptation" in his book "Have You Felt Like Giving Up Lately"

"Family" need not be used strictly in the sense of blood relationship. It can also be correctly used to indicate a multi-member group, related by occupation, species, status, responsibility, kind, etc. It is in this sense that the Bible frequently uses elohim. Angels are a family of created spirit beings, one kind. Judges are a group of individuals with common authority and responsibility. As Paul says in I Corinthians 8:5, "There are many gods and many lords," false gods are a group—all are one category—because they share one common trait: They are all false.

Quote from God Is . . . What?
by John W. Ritenbaugh
Forerunner, "Personal," September 1993

On the whole, it could be said that the discovery of confusion is enlightenment. When we discover confusion, the enlightened state becomes redundant. Discovering the confusion is the most important thing of all. It is facing reality and getting beyond the many kinds of self-deception. Whereas if we are purely searching for something glorious and pleasurable, if we view enlightenment as a promised land or treasure island, then it is just a myth. It just adds further pain. We cannot get to such a treasure island; we cannot get to such a promised land; we cannot actually attain enlightenment. The more we think about enlightenment, the more pain we feel because of the frustration of not getting there, which just creates further confusion. So the Buddhist tradition tells us, and here all the sects and schools concur, that if we are going to begin on the path, we have to begin at the beginning. We cannot begin halfway through and we cannot begin on the dream level. We have to face the reality of our actual living situation.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

"From a neuroscience perspective, sin is deeply reflected in the degree to which our minds are dis-integrated, or in Paul's language, depraved. In other words, what the language of neuroscience calls dis-integration offers a correlate to the scriptural language of sin."

Curt Thompson, M.D., Anatomy of the Soul

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

Quote: "Our Messiah is the Breaker. He is the One who brings the breakthrough. Our job is to press in closely to Him. Until the time of our deliverance and the day of our translation into glory our Redeemer has us covered. Of that we can be sure. He has made abundant provision for our witness by His Holy Spirit. He asks us to trust Him. He asks us to draw near to Him. -Heb.10:22-23 Our difficult, yet glorious road of discovery is near. It is just up ahead."

The breaker i.e. the breachmaker.

Quote from The End-Time Pilgrim:
http://endtimepilgrim.org/welcome.htm

"Neuroscience, as we've seen, helps us recognize that sin results from not paying close enough attention to the varying experiences of our minds as mediated by the reptilian, limbic and cortical portions of our brains - those parts of our souls by which God's voice is mediated. This leads us to act relatively impulsively, unreflectively, and (perhaps most important) in isolation. Redemption, on the other hand, is mindfulness in action, on both a cosmic and personal level."

Curt Thompson, M.D., Anatomy of the Soul

Anatomy of the Soul lol

"As we'll see, Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation of viewing God from a distorted perspective. We do the same:

* creating God in our own image through the lenses of our attachment patterns

* forming our own gods out of any and all coping mechanisms, whether physical or mental;

* doing what we please and resisting those who suggest we do anything differently

Some of those who leave God out of the equation of life argue that evolution alone, without the need for a loving, "dangerous" creator, offers us a picture of progress. Now while I generally comprehend evolution as part of God's creative process, you'd think that after ten thousand years of cultural evolution, we would have substantially corrected our overall trajectory of injustice and callousness. But we only need to think about the current number of armed conflicts (either between nations or neighborhoods), third world debt, political and governmental corruption, and major-league baseball on steroids to obtain a reality check."

Dr. Curt Thompson, Anatomy of the Soul

"In the twentieth century the magnificent sensate house of Western man began to deteriorate rapidly and then to crumble. There was, among other things, a disintegration of its moral, legal, and other values which, from within, control and guide the behavior of individuals and groups. When human beings cease to be controlled by deeply interiorized religious, ethical, aesthetic and other values, individuals and groups become the victims of crude power and fraud as the supreme controlling forces of their behavior, relationship, and destiny. In such circumstances, man turns into a human animal driven mainly by his biological urges, passions, and lust. Individual and collective unrestricted egotism flares up; a struggle for existence intensifies; might becomes right; and wars, bloody revolutions, crime, and other forms of interhuman strife and bestiality explode on an unprecedented scale. So it was in all great transitory periods. (BT, 1964, p. 24)"

From Culture in Crisis: The Visionary Theories of Pitirim Sorokin
http://satyagraha.wordpress.com/2010...-of-modernity/

"If there is a god, he is 100% malicious, but only 80% effective."

-Jim Holt

“When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.”

Emo Philips

Arthur Conan Doyle – A Study In Scarlet

His [Sherlock's]ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth
travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
– Richard P. Feynman

"The truth is Jesus Christ died for you personally and specifically because he loves you absolutely and to make you the beneficiary of God's will."

- Splendour

C.S. Lewis quotes:

"Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives."


"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell."



"God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."


"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."


"There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."


"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."



"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad."

"George Orwell warned in his novel 1984 how moral relativism can be used against society in order to gradually enslave people, according to this quote:"The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy; we change them. Do you understand what I mean by that?" And this quote ( from John Adams' Address to the Military, 1798) shows how civil rights are taken away through relativist conditioning, "Indeed, as long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison they never even become aware that they are oppressed."

Quote from "Logical Reasons why Moral Relativism is False" an article from an uncensored Christian blog
http://templestream.blogspot.com/201...-is-false.html

"We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."

John Adams, Founding Father


"Out of this apparently innocent idea [that values are subjective] comes the disease that will certainly end our species (and, in my view, damn our souls) if it is not crushed; the fatal superstition that men can create values, that a community can choose its ideology as men choose their clothes."

C.S. Lewis



"The weak and ill-constituted shall perish: first principle of our philanthropy. And one shall help them to do so."

Friedrich Nietzsche

"There are almost 5,000 gods being worshiped by humanity...but dont worry! Only yours is right!"

Zach Braff.

C.S. Lewis - Prince Caspian

"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."
"That is because you're older, little one," answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

Olan Hicks:

"There is a vast difference between reasoning upon the word and reasoning instead of consulting the word. There is a huge difference between the idea of logic subjected to the final authority of the word and the idea of the word subjected to the final authority of logic."

"How Reliable is Logic?" Olan Hicks
http://www.theexaminer.org/volume2/number1/logic.htm

"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." -Albert Einstein