Eric Hoffer Quotes

But the God of the Bible is not only One, but the only possible One.

The one and true God of the Bible does not share His glory with any man or anyone else. There is only room for one God.

Every people is a chosen people in its own mind. And it is rather amusing that their name for themselves usually means mankind.

The great danger... in believing yourself especially chosen is that it becomes easy to view those who are not your people as God's especially unchosen.

It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day.

The Hebrews took for their idol, not something made of metal or wood, but a race, a nation, something just as earthly. Their religion is essentially inseparable from such idolatry, because of the notion of the 'chosen people'.

That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.

Conformism is essential to the group coherence and 'spirit.' The whole impetus behind tribalism of this kind is conservative: Belonging to the tribe is defined by opposition to other tribes. Our tribe, and its traditional ways, is superior to other tribes because it is ours.

For if the honour paid to Him is shared by others, He altogether ceases to be worshipped, since His religion requires us to believe that He is the one and only God.

The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.

One would think that people who insist on being monotheistic would be the first in line to walk across the artificial boundaries created by nation states, class systems, cultures and even religions. But often they are the last!

Throughout the Old Testament, God warns his chosen people about the perils of assimilation, shiksappeal and false gods.

You only trust those who are absolutely like yourself, those who have signed a pledge of allegiance to this particular identity.

Nationalism made us feel as if we were a unique, chosen people. That's what led us down the path of aggression.

People want to be with their own and want to be separated from others.

Thinking of ourselves as members of 'this group' or 'that group,' I think that's a recipe for division.

I think America, unfortunately, collectively thinks of itself as the 'chosen people.' To my knowledge, there are no chosen people, we are all human beings.

In uniform patriotism can salute one flag only, embrace but the first circle of life - one's own land and tribe. In war that is necessary, in peace it is not enough.

Nothing, however, can be more arrogant, though nothing is commoner than to assume that of Gods there is only one, and of religions none but the speaker’s.

Is Islam a tribe or is it a force of globalization? Islam has certainly been studied as a local, tribalistic phenomenon. But Islam is also theoretically a universalist idea, its spread has been facilitated by modern technologies, and it's an identity that people can slip into and out of fairly easily. I don't think Islam has really been understood as a product of globalization. It might be one of these instances where globalism and tribalism ultimately go hand in hand.

Unlike many people today, Jesus did not teach that all religions in the world are simply different paths up the same mountain of truth that leads to God. Jesus could not have been more clear: he offers the only way to heaven.

I'm fortunate because people can't put a label on me, which I embrace wholeheartedly.

Every ethnic group thinks they are the chosen ones.

The greatest fear people have is that of being themselves. They want to be 50 Cent or someone else. They do what everyone else does even if it doesn’t fit where and who they are. But you get nowhere that way; your energy is weak and no one pays attention to you. You’re running away from the one thing that you own – what makes you different. I lost that fear. And once I felt the power that I had by showing the world I didn’t care about being like other people, I could never go back.

Belief in one God is the cornerstone of all religions.