Believing Quotes - page 29
In addition to that sentience, which the insect or animal has, the human being is endowed with intellect. Intellect is what is cognized, which the animal need not do. So it is this power of the intellect to discriminate and interpret what is cognized that gives the individual being a sense of individuality and makes him consider himself something special in this manifestation. What is more, he goes to the extent of believing that the entire manifestation has been created for his benefit! So, all the time he is thinking, In what way can I benefit by exploiting nature?
Ramesh Balsekar
[The atheist's] faith is much greater than mine. I could never for a moment believe that all these things happened by chance. Never in a million years. But the believing atheist does, and he amazingly looks down intellectually on those that maintain that all this incredible creation wasn't an act of an incredible creator.
Ray Comfort
There are two ways you can read the Bible. One is with the light off. By that I mean that you can read it with a proud heart, looking for mistakes, marking seeming contradictions, believing you are intellectually superior to what you are reading. The second way is with the light on. By that I mean with a humble heart, believing that you don't know everything, and that you could gain knowledge by studying the world's greatest-selling book of all time.
Ray Comfort
Perhaps you see nothing wrong with believing the theory of evolution, even if it can't be substantiated. But remember - your information will govern your actions... If you believe evolution is true, and from that premise believe that the Bible is false, then you won't repent... If your faith is placed in evolution and not in God's promises, you will find that the object to which you have tied yourself will be your eternal downfall.
Ray Comfort
Such craziness [in not believing in God] makes me want to throw up my hands in despair, and then wash them of anything to do with atheism. But I can't. Compassion won't let me. I thank God for the love and concern that He places in those who trust Him. Without it, I'm not sure I would even care about the salvation of anyone but myself and my immediate family and friends.
Ray Comfort
The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
George Orwell
Just as many who were brought up to think of God as a bearded old gentleman sitting on a cloud decided that when they stopped believing in such a being they had therefore stopped believing in God, so many who were taught to think of hell as a literal underground location full of worms and fire...decided that when they stopped believing in that, so they stopped believing in hell. The first group decided that because they couldn't believe in childish images of God, they must be atheists. The second decided that because they couldn't believe in childish images of hell, they must be universalists.
N.T. Wright
The reaction to 'Aftermath' has been far worse than to 'A Life's Work,' yet I find I'm perhaps a little less touched by it. In both cases, I've coped artistically by believing the criticisms weren't right. They upset me, but they didn't challenge my understanding of how to write, nor of how morality functions in literature.
Rachel Cusk
Suppose rather than passing the plate in church, they get a radio show and pass the plate and half a million listeners donate. Isn't that going to convince a preacher that it's all true? Wealth comes to the faithful, that's the message they're going to take. An' I never yet met a con man who wasn't the better at the job for believing his own spiel.
Charles Stross
I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story - I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it - but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen story-books have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea' - is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.
Lewis Carroll
