Alien Drums

I’m asking for your help — the help of anyone reading this. I would like for you to share some of your favorite quotes. Let me explain.

I’m trying to do something that may seem a bit over the top. I’m trying to outline what I believe about this and that, about everything from Spirituality to War, from Angels to Psychology. You get the picture.

I’m 52 years old, and I can see more clearly that there is an end to all of this material world living. For some ridiculous reason, I would like my children to be able to find out what Dad thought about some of the big issues of life and some of the not-so-big ones, as well.
Here’s how I’m doing it: If you have read this blog before, you know I like to quote people. I figure if someone else said something really well, why do I need to try to say it really average. So I have decided to start organizing quotes with which I agree — emphasis on “agree.” For example: here’s entries to this point under Religion:

“Religion points us to the last things, framing the final direction that informs our decisions about life, both personal and public. The chief service of religion, then, is to teach us that the first things are the last things.” (Editors, “Putting First Things First,” First Things, Mach 2000, p. 12)

“[G]reat religions in their crusading youth spread through the nations the peace of Heaven and the sword of the Lord.” (Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1925, p. 1)

“Judaism and Christianity—unlike Buddhism, Islam, and other traditions—understand creation and redemption in historical continuity; the accent of hope is not on salvation from the world but on the salvation of the world.” (Richard John Neuhaus, “The Public Square: A Pope of the First Millennium at the Threshold of the Third,” First Things, January 1995, No. 49, p. 84)

You get the idea. (By the way, I’m a Christian, but I think truth is revealed in other faiths, as well.) Now, I would like to expand on each of those thoughts, but right now I’m just collecting and organizing.

So here’s how I would like your help: Share with me your favorite quotes about Religion. It may be really profound or really funny or really sad; most importantly, it should be something you think is true about religion in general.