I recently found my collection of cuttings of Thoughts and Quotes which I have kept for many years.
Here is my collection.
"I am a man; I count nothing human foreign to me" Terence, Roman Comic Playwright.
"The Union will not see its 300th anniversary" Said in 2001 by Alex Salmond, then leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party. Act of Union was 1707 so union is now 307 years old.
"What is life without dreams?" Edmond Rosland, French Playwright.
"Even a god cannot change the past." Agaton, Athenian Poet.
"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy." Robert Lewis Stevenson, Scottish Novelist.
"Nothing happens to any man that he is not framed by nature to bear." Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor.
"In dreams begins responsibility." W.H. Yeats, Irish Poet.
"I think knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can do." Lucille Ball, American Comedienne.
"A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy, and nothing can stop him." Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Novelist.
"The heart of man is made to reconcile the most glaring contradictions." David Hume, Scottish Philosopher.
"There was never an angry man who thought his anger unjust." St Francis De Sales, Bishop of Geneva.
"Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi, Biochemist.
"Science must begin with myths, and the criticism of myths." Karl Popper, Philosopher.
"History gets thicker as it approaches recent times." A.J.P. Taylor, historian.
"A liberal man is too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel." Robert Frost, Poet.
"One man with courage is a majority." Thomas Jefferson, US President.
"Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically." Mao Tse-tung, Founder of the People's Republic of china.
"Unless one is a genius, it is best to aim at being unintelligible." Anthony Hope, English Author.
"The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself." Rita Mae Brown, American Writer.
"If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder." Pope John Paul I.
"Everyone threw the blame one me. I have noticed that they nearly always do. I suppose it is because they think I shall be able to bear it best." Winston Churchill, British Statesman.
"For many years I thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa." Charles Erwin Wilson, American Businessman.
"The real question in not whether machines think but whether men do." B.F. Skinner, American Psychologist.
"The conventional army loses if it does not win. the guerilla wins if he does not lose." Henry Kissinger, US Sec of State
"It is a good rule in life never to apologies. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take advantage iof them." P.G. Wodehouse, English Humourist.
"It is as wholly wrong to blame Marx for what was done in his name as it is to blame Jesus for what was done in his." Tony Benn, British Politician.
"You can make a throne from bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long." Boris Yeltsin, Russian President
"Life makes no absolute statements. It is all Call and Answer." D.H. Lawrence. English Writer.
"It is seldom that any liberty is lost all at once." David Hume, Scottish Philosopher.
"I know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down." Aneurin Bevin, British Labour Politician.
"Life is too short to stuff a mushroom." Shirley Conran, English Writer.
"In England there are 60 different religions, and only one source." Francesco Caracciolo, Neapolitan Diplomat.
"Total understanding makes one very indulgent." Mme de Stael, French Writer.
"Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance." Plato, Greek Philosopher.
"A really intelligent man feels what other men only know." Charles Montesquieu, French Historian.
Thursday 20 November 2014
Monday 10 November 2014
The Incongruity of God
In Richard Holloway's memoir 'Leaving Alexandria: a Memoir of faith and doubt' I gained the impression that Holloway gradually lost his faith through a growing sense that God's logic just doesn't add up. Holloway struggles with the incongruity of life and sees that there is no way he can fit the concept of a just, loving, merciful God into the reality of the world he sees around him.
My position is that in many ways I agree with Holloway, but I start from the position that my faith is secure, it's just my doubts that are not. I remember the inspiration I took from an old university friend Christina, who said, "keep it simple, love God, and know God loves you." Like a marriage that starts from the assumption that the two are staying together, so differences had better be sorted out, no matter how long it might take.
The incongruities I see in my faith are:-
The Bible - with bits missing.
This is a book made from the collision of different stories and narratives over 2000 year ago. So many of the stories have tantalising bits missing. I respect the wisdom of the early church fathers in putting the 'best bits' together. But they were 'fathers'. The sexual inequality of the time was preserved in this book, and then influenced many hundreds of years of civilization, reach out across the world. A lot of it was fine, but a lot was not, such as slavery, and other discrimination.
All Born Sinners.
My favourite incongruity is the way humanity is designed to fail. My analogy is that it is like waking up in the driving seat of a car heading full pelt towards a wall, and being expected to swerve and save the situation. Not possible. God does save the situation in a wonderful way, but why the set up?
The Creation of Destructors.
We are hearing about the horror of Ebola. Generations before us were hit hard by the black death, and bubonic plague. These are viruses that just kill. They even kill themselves. They appear to achieve nothing. And they are described as some of the earliest life forms, perhaps important in the development of biological replication. I is hard to argue that these mechanisms entered the world after the fall. They are intricate to all life. This concept is accepted in Eastern thought as 'Yin and Yan'. God being both 'love' and 'hate'. My logic is clearly very different from the Divine.
The Place of Organised Faith.
Another favourite theme of mine. Evidence points to human existence over many thousands of years. Clearly knowledge of the events surrounding the life of Jesus are not essential for a meaningful existence on this earth. There is no way many people can have known anything about Jesus in centuries past. Other aspects of 'life' must be crucial to living life to the full. Otherwise it just not fair.
But isn't that what Holloway was saying? However I do believe God has got the answers.
My position is that in many ways I agree with Holloway, but I start from the position that my faith is secure, it's just my doubts that are not. I remember the inspiration I took from an old university friend Christina, who said, "keep it simple, love God, and know God loves you." Like a marriage that starts from the assumption that the two are staying together, so differences had better be sorted out, no matter how long it might take.
The incongruities I see in my faith are:-
The Bible - with bits missing.
This is a book made from the collision of different stories and narratives over 2000 year ago. So many of the stories have tantalising bits missing. I respect the wisdom of the early church fathers in putting the 'best bits' together. But they were 'fathers'. The sexual inequality of the time was preserved in this book, and then influenced many hundreds of years of civilization, reach out across the world. A lot of it was fine, but a lot was not, such as slavery, and other discrimination.
All Born Sinners.
My favourite incongruity is the way humanity is designed to fail. My analogy is that it is like waking up in the driving seat of a car heading full pelt towards a wall, and being expected to swerve and save the situation. Not possible. God does save the situation in a wonderful way, but why the set up?
The Creation of Destructors.
We are hearing about the horror of Ebola. Generations before us were hit hard by the black death, and bubonic plague. These are viruses that just kill. They even kill themselves. They appear to achieve nothing. And they are described as some of the earliest life forms, perhaps important in the development of biological replication. I is hard to argue that these mechanisms entered the world after the fall. They are intricate to all life. This concept is accepted in Eastern thought as 'Yin and Yan'. God being both 'love' and 'hate'. My logic is clearly very different from the Divine.
The Place of Organised Faith.
Another favourite theme of mine. Evidence points to human existence over many thousands of years. Clearly knowledge of the events surrounding the life of Jesus are not essential for a meaningful existence on this earth. There is no way many people can have known anything about Jesus in centuries past. Other aspects of 'life' must be crucial to living life to the full. Otherwise it just not fair.
But isn't that what Holloway was saying? However I do believe God has got the answers.
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