The Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
3rd Earl Russell of Kingston
A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian.
As long as you are not aware of the continual law of Die and Be Again, you are merely a vague guest on a dark Earth.
Though through all his life a fool associates with a wise man, he yet understands not the Dharma, as the spoon, the flavor of soup.
God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things, though they are ignorant that he is so.
We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God's holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God's power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine.
It is possible to live the Christian life just on the surface, knowing only enough to carry on an intelligent conversation in the church foyer with another equally uninformed believer, but when that happens you are vulnerable to the attack of the deceiver.
The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot understand it
It seems that, after nineteen centuries of extraordinary glorification, the small Host for which so many cathedrals have sprung up, the small Host that has rested in millions of breasts and that has found a tabernacle and worshippers even in the desert - it seems that the triumphant Host of Lourdes and the Eucharistic Congresses of Chicago and Carthage remains as unknown, as secret as when it appeared for the first time in a room in Jerusalem. Light is in the world as in the days of St. John the Baptist, and the world does not know it
Where does the ego get its energy? The ego feeds off your desire to be something else. You are poor and you want to be rich - the ego is absorbing energy, its life-breath. You are ignorant and you want to become a wise one - the ego is absorbing energy. You are a wretched nobody and you want to become powerful - the ego is absorbing energy.
I was not in the church, but we claim, like so many people, 'Yeah, I grew up in the church.' Well yeah, I grew up in the church and went to church, but I knew nothing about the Lord. I had no idea what it meant about walking in faith.
Paul was not ignorant of Satan's devices, but we are not so wise. Among his most successful devices today are these: exalting tolerance above truth; emphasizing the head more than the heart; making size more important than sort; stressing the positive to the neglect of the negative; putting happiness above holiness; majoring on this world instead of the next.
The Christian fear of the pagan outlook has damaged the whole consciousness of man.
How some dare scorn (as if a fabulous lie) that they should rise whom death to dust doth bind -- and like to beasts, a beastly life they lead, who naught attend save death when they are dead.
When a person thinks, I am a Christian, this other person is a Muslim, therefore he is my enemy, or I am a Muslim, this other person is a Hindu, therefore she is my enemy, they reveal their own lack of spiritual depth. No religion teaches this, and any understanding of any religion that adopts this divisive attitude proves itself false by doing so.
If religious people deny paradise to their opponents or to 'non-believers,' atheists would likewise seek to eliminate 'dangerous' believers with their 'childish' ways and their heads in the clouds.
I don't blame other people for the rap that Christians have. A lot of Christians are just mental. A lot of Christians are more concerned with telling you where you're gonna go when you die than what you can have while you're here.
There may be some so very Ignorant, that they know not how to Pray.
Whatsoever misfortunes there are Here in this world or in the next, They all have their root in Ignorance And in the accumulation of Longing and Desire.
Not knowing life, how can we know death? Why talk of spirits when you do not understand men?
Entrenched scriptural literalism is, in my opinion, completely out of touch with reality.
Just as all things speak about God to those that know Him, and reveal Him to those that love Him, they also hide Him from all those that neither seek nor know Him.
Those who worship don't know, and those who know don't worship.
It's easy to get tired of religious fundamentalists. They're such a bore. They have no sense of mystery. It's a drag, man.
I think the world is in the mess it's in because we are spiritually ignorant.
