Quote of the Day

Jesus was the first of the Enlightenment philosophers.  In John 8:4-7 speaking like some sort of first century Voltaire, Jesus questioned the laws and traditions of his day.  "And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they said to him, 'Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.  Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?' ...  Jesus said unto them, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'"  Voltaire couldn't have said it better.

-- Frank Schaeffer, Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God, p. 60

Quote of the Day

The moment that any of us allows another human being to push us off of the meaningful experiences in our lives, we begin to erode in spirit.

-- Jennifer Knapp, "Ask Jennifer Knapp...(Response)"

Quote of the Day

Learn to respond, not react.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 46

Quote of the Day

I would write ads for deodorants or labels for catsup bottles, if I had to.  The miracle of turning inklings into thoughts and thoughts into words and words into metal and print and ink never palls for me.

-- John Updike

Quote of the Day

Indeed, this sense of relief in the midst of our grief can be confusing.  Initially, I felt guilty about my excitement at finally becoming non-religious, especially since most of my friends and family remained faithful.  What they saw as the sudden and tragic death of my faith felt – to me – like the merciful pulling of tubes, allowing something lifeless to end.  When I expressed my happiness at no longer being religious, they often experienced my exuberance as inappropriate or disrespectful.

-- Jim Mulholland, "Religious Grief"

Quote of the Day

"Dumpster diving" is one of the jobs of the artist -- finding the treasure in other people's trash, sifting through the debris of our culture, paying attention to the stuff that everyone else is ignoring, and taking inspiration from the stuff that people have tossed aside for whatever reasons.

-- Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!, p. 79-80

Quote of the Day

Grace does not require remaining silent about bullying and abuse.

-- Rachel Held Evans, "On Forgiveness and Abuse"

Quote of the Day

Neither Marxist nor Christian feminism is possible to imagine without the Enlightenment just as the Enlightenment is impossible to envision other than as a reaction to the hypocrisy of the establishment, Church.

-- Frank Schaeffer, Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God, p. 59-60

Quote of the Day

It wasn't until publication of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" that women's dissatisfaction with life and frustration over lack of opportunities came to light.

-- Katie McLaughlin, “5 things women couldn't do in the 1960s”

Quote of the Day

When leading, be generous with the community, honorable in action, sincere in your words.  As for the rest, do not be concerned.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 43

Quote of the Day

I hate commitments, obligations and working under pressure.  But on the other hand, I like getting paid in advance and I only work under pressure.

-- Edward Abbey

Quote of the Day

Some -- though reluctantly accepting my departure -- questioned my motivation for writing about it.  Was I burning my bridges, justifying my decision or hoping to recruit others?  Though hardly immune from such impulses, my primary reason for writing a book was easier to explain.  I'd always written about my inner journey in sermons, books and speeches.  The reflection others did in private I'd done in public.  Until now, friends and family had enjoyed eavesdropping on these internal conversations.  What had shifted was not my inclination, but my audience.  I wasn't writing for them any longer.  I was writing for those moving from a religious to a post-religious life, to ease their pain and encourage their persistence, to offer them what I had sought.

-- Jim Mulholland, "Why I Left Religion, Wrote a Book and Alienated Friends and Family"

Quote of the Day

The problem with hoarding is you end up living off your reserves.  Eventually, you'll become stale.  If you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing.  This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish...Somehow the more you give away, the more comes back to you.

-- Paul Arden

Quote of the Day

Forgiveness isn't earned, but trust is.  You can forgive a person without trusting him.

-- Rachel Held Evans, "On Forgiveness and Abuse"

Quote of the Day

Nineteenth-century women first gained power in non-conformist denominations by arguing the example of Jesus.  They gained power in these churches before the secular society gave them the vote or modern secular feminism arose in the post-World War II period.

-- Frank Schaeffer, Why I Am a Atheist Who Believes in God, p. 59

Quote of the Day

I think one reason I’m drawn to writing and art is that I don’t have to be competitive — if I’m competing with anyone, it’s against myself, or a bunch of my favorite (most of them dead) artists, or it’s a kind of friendly competition spurred on by seeing other folks’ work in the world. And even then, I’m not competing to be the best at what I do, I’m trying to be the only one who does what I do.

-- Austin Kleon, "Some thoughts on Layer Tennis and having another body in the room"

Quote of the Day

Joy comes not through possession or ownership but through a wise and loving heart.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 36

Quote of the Day

On an ordinary day (Charles Dickens) could complete about two thousand words in this way, but during a flight of imagination he sometimes managed twice that amount.  Other days, however, he would hardly write anything; nevertheless, he stuck to his work hours without fail, doodling and staring out the window to pass the time.

-- Mason Currey, Daily Rituals, p. 161

Quote of the Day

When I was struggling with whether to leave, I read two types of writing.  Writers like Spong, Borg and Vospar comforted those on the fringes of my religious tradition, calling all manner of disbelief acceptable.  Having written such books, I knew their inadequacies.  The rest were anti-religious.  Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris threw out the baby with the bathwater, demanding total renunciation and accusing religion of every imaginable evil.  Their judgments rang false.  What I sought was someone living in the middle -- appreciative of all the goodness of religion, but acknowledging its ultimate insufficiency for many.  Frustrated, I wrote what I could not find.
 
-- Jim Mulholland, "Why I Left Religion, Wrote a Book and Alienated Friends and Family"

Quote of the Day

Build a good name.  Keep your name clean.  Don't make compromises.  Don't worry about making a bunch of money or being successful.  Be concerned with doing good work...and if you can build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.

-- William Burroughs

Quote of the Day

When Christians are told that Christlike forgiveness means accepting every apology as sincere, we can inadvertently perpetuate abuse. 

-- Rachel Held Evans, "On Forgiveness and Abuse"

Quote of the Day

The humanist Enlightenment was the catalyst for Jesus' empathy time bomb, the message of inclusion for the excluded.  The Enlightenment came to Europe through philosophers like Voltaire who were influenced by the ethics Jesus taught.  Eventually these ethics -- as reinterpreted by secular Enlightenment philosophers -- caused countries like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Holland and Norway to become places where being young, female, sick or old isn't such a bad thing,

-- Frank Schaeffer, Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God, p. 58

Quote of the Day

Forgiveness means I carry no more resentment.  It doesn't mean I tolerate more abuse.
 
-- Elizabeth Esther

Quote of the Day

It is not our preferences that cause problems but our attachment to them.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 35

Quote of the Day

We have failed to recognize our great asset: time.  A conscientious use of it could make us into something quite amazing.

-- Friedrich Schiller

Quote of the Day

For many of us, leaving religion is like leaving home.  For others, it feels like a divorce.  We experience depression and sadness.  When I express this sadness to non-religious people, they seldom understand.  They think my departure from religion a rational decision.  In this, they are wrong.  Leaving was an emotional disconnection.  Some accuse me of still harboring religious sympathies.  In this, they are correct.  I will never see the religious with their cold calculation.  What I see is my grandfather who preached in the lumberjack camps of Northern Michigan, or my mother who played hymns at the piano while I played at her feet, or the genuinely kind people I had the pleasure of meeting as a pastor.

-- Jim Mulholland, "Religious Grief"

Quote of the Day

If you work on something a little bit every day, you end up with something that is massive.

-- Kenneth Goldsmith

Quote of the Day

Just as I've never heard a sermon against the Cretans, I've also never heard a sermon on 1 Timothy 2:8, in which Paul tells Timothy, "I want men everywhere to pray, lifting holy hands without anger or disputing" that included a universal dictum that all men everywhere must raise their hands whenever they pray (UPDATED NIV).  But I've heard more than I can count on 1 Timothy 2:11, just three verses later, which says, "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission" that have included universal dictums that all women everywhere must submit to male authority in the church.

-- Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, p. 261

Quote of the Day

Jesus built what I think of as an empathy time bomb.  He lit a slow-burning fuse -- then left.  Whatever you believe about how Jesus left -- be it via death, resurrection or flying into the clouds -- what he left behind remains: the accelerated pace of the evolution of our ethical consciousness.  Essentially Jesus said: To hell with mere survival.  Choose to evolve into a new and better animal!  What Jesus triggered was an inexorable shift to a higher level of ethics that eventually changed the trajectory of human history.  Love, fairness, opportunity, freedom and goodness eventually begin to trump mere survival and brute power.

-- Frank Schaeffer, Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God, p. 56

Quote of the Day

We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.

-- Joan Didion

Quote of the Day

There is only one time when it is essential to awaken.  That time is now.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 33