J. M. Coetzee Quotes

To say that God permits evil in the world may not be pleasing to the ear. But if He is held responsible for the good, it follows that He has to be responsible for the evil too.

Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.

God's not unjust, he doesn't actually exist. We've been deceived. If God existed, he'd have made the world more just...

Man can and does rationalize his sins. He finds reasons for all his weakness, invents excuses that first calm and then deaden his conscience. He blames God, society, education, and environment for his wrong doing.

How can a good God appoint cruel people to positions of authority? The answer is simple: God is the originator of the authority, but He is not the author of the cruelty. Man is responsible for his cruel actions, not God. All authority is of God, but not all authority is godly.

God, the source of our knowledge, has been expelled from the classroom. He gives us His greatest blessing, life, and yet many would condone the taking of innocent life. We expect Him to protect us in a crisis, but turn away from Him too often in our day-to-day living. I wonder if He isn't waiting for us to wake up.

There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular one is Providence.

At the end of the day, every child has learned the Lesson of Spin: Almost every wrong action can be stripped of consequences, along with the need for feelings of guilt and remorse.

I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him.

I ask why your Omnipotent God does not hold a man back when he is about to commit a sin or offence. It is child’s play for God. Why did He not kill war lords? Why did He not remove the fury of war from their minds? In this way God could have saved humanity from great calamity and horror.

The Rudderless World is not shaped by vague metaphysical Forces. It is not God who kills the Children. Not Fate that butchers them or Destiny that feeds them to the Dogs. ... It´s us. Only us.

I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards.

We don't get to decide who God is.

If we can get that realistic feminine morality working for us, if we can trust ourselves and so let women think and feel that an unwanted child or an oversize family is wrong -- not ethically wrong, not against the rules, but morally wrong, all wrong, wrong like a thalidomide birth, wrong like taking a wrong step that will break your neck -- if we can get feminine and human morality out from under the yoke of a dead ethic, then maybe we'll begin to get somewhere on the road that leads to survival.

Humans have more moral responsibility perhaps, because they are capable of reasoning.

I was an altar boy, I took catechism classes and religion classes, and I prayed a lot as a child. My family was very religious, and I really experienced God.

Though a woman tempted man to eat, my dear Longfellow," said Holmes, "you never hear of Eve having to do with his drinking, for he took to that of his own notion.

Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience. 'I feel really guilty about getting drunk last night,' we say, when in actual fact we feel no guilt whatsoever or, at least, we could choose to feel no guilt. When people say to me, 'I drank too much last night,' I always reply, 'I drank exactly the right amount.

The fact that God knows everything does not mean that He is directly causing everything. He respects our freedom at our level. He makes it possible for us to act freely. If He didn't, we wouldn't act at all - we wouldn't be at all.

A man who knows that he lives in sin against God will not be inclined to come daily into the presence of God.

He recalls what that first German soldier said to his major: No God-not yours or mine-approves of what you're doing.

Even if God exists, he's done such a terrible job, it's a wonder people don't get together and file a class action suit against him.

One may take many liberties with God which one cannot take with men.

God himself is not secure, having given man dominion over his work.

Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not.