Akiva ben Joseph Quotes

I've found a more personal, pagan kind of religion to satisfy the spiritual side of things.

There is a danger in monotheism, and it's called idolatry. And we know the prophets of Israel were very, very concerned about idolatry, the worship of a human expression of the divine.

If you look back to the earliest religions, before they got organized and started building churches and amassing wealth, they all sprang from the same place - they were inspired by nature.

Banish afar the foul worship of idols. On their alters let the blood of animals smoke no more, nor the soothsayer look for omens in warm entrails, nor the meaningless augur attend to the song of birds. Let all the images of the gods be smashed to the ground.

The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief.

Paganism is wholesome because it faces the facts of life.

Paganism is infectious, more infectious than diphtheria or piety.

The evergreen played an influential role in the spiritual life of early societies throughout the world. Archaeological and anthropological evidence indicates that veneration of the tree dates from at least 4000 years before Christ … These pagan beliefs survive to this day embedded in religious rituals and myths as well as secular customs, legends and fairy tales

India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.

People should never worship images. The spread of mental darkness is due to the prevalence of idolatry.

Ninety-nine percent of the things that seem weird in my life can be answered with my religion. Paganism is mostly about nature-worship. It's about being in harmony with your environment and bringing the world of spirit and world of man together. It's about balance.

The opposite of Christianity is not atheism, but idolatry.

We are, on the whole, an idolatrous people...

The day of the absolute is over, and we're in for the strange gods once more.

The system of idolatry, invented by modern christianity, far surpasses in absurdity anything that we have ever heard of.

I believe in mystery and multiplicity. To religious believers this may sound almost pagan. But I don't think so.

An idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand.

Sun-worship and pure forms of nature-worship were, in their day, noble religions, highly allegorical but full of profound truth and knowledge.

Monotheism makes me grouchy. I don't trust any religion that makes God look like one of the ruling class. I guess I'm a pagan or an animist.

If you go back far enough and get a wider enough picture of history, we have let go of many things that follow a religious narrative. We don't burn witches anymore. Most people would consider that barbaric. We don't sacrifice human beings, which was a religious act practiced by numerous cultures on this planet.

How it came to pass that man, originally taught, as we doubt not he was, to know and to worship the true Jehovah, is found, at so early a period of his history, a worshiper of baser objects, it is foreign to our present purpose to inquire.

On first acquaintance, the mystery of the Mayans of Guatemala can seem simply bizarre, as it was when I first encountered Maximon the god.

I've always loved the idea of mythologies linked to or underlying everyday life, like the kami gods of Shintoism, where every rock, tree and stream has its own little god associated with it.

Jeremiah has to lament that there are as many altars as towns in Judah.

Authors as diverse as Rudyard Kipling, E. Nesbit, and J. R. R. Tolkien have shaped modern paganism as greatly as any theological underpinnings.