A Quote by Albert Schweitzer
By ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
It's tempting to think that decisions that are not life-and-death are therefore unimportant, and that the little compromises we make don't matter to our bottom line or our spiritual selves. How many of us are tempted, in business, to make a less-than-ethical decision? To appropriate someone else's idea or fudge some numbers? We have to remember that maintaining our ethical and spiritual selves is absolutely linked with achieving the degree of success we're working toward.
When we accept Christ we enter into three new relationships: (1) We enter into a new relationship with God. The judge becomes the father; the distant becomes the near; strangeness becomes intimacy and fear becomes love. (2) We enter into a new relationship with our fellow men. Hatred becomes love; selfishness becomes service; and bitterness becomes forgiveness. (3) We enter into a new relationship with ourselves. Weakness becomes strength; frustration becomes achievement; and tension becomes peace.
Attitudes toward other creatures is conditioned by one's level of security within the universe.
A good-looking piece of scenery anywhere delights the eye and elevates the spirits. Some of us, crude creatures that we are, are merely excited; finer souls draw ethical and spiritual nutrients from the sight.
I have observed that religious practice is not a precondition either of ethical conduct or of happiness itself. I have also suggested that, whether a person practices religion or not, the spiritual qualities of love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, humility and so on are indispensable.
A rewarding relationship occurs when there is a common spiritual goal, shared spiritual values and a mutual desire to build a relationship upon a spiritual foundation and for the purpose of connecting to the light of the creator.
I'm spiritual! You know what spiritual means! Me and God has a good relationship. I'm in tune with the universe, the sun, moon, and stars. I'm in tune with the jinns that are all around us.
Spinoza , for example, thought that insight into the essence of reality, into the harmonious structure of the eternal universe, necessarily awakens love for this universe. For him, ethical conduct is entirely determined by such insight into nature, just as our devotion to a person may be determined by insight into his greatness or genius. Fears and petty passions, alien to the great love of the universe, which is logos itself, will vanish, according to Spinoza, once our understanding of reality is deep enough.
When any relationship is characterized by difference, particularly a disparity in power, there remains a tendency to model it on the parent-child-relationship. Even protectiveness and benevolence toward the poor, toward minorities, and especially toward women have involved equating them with children.
A spiritual teaching is a finger pointing toward Reality; it is not Reality itself. To be in a true and mature relationship with a spiritual teaching requires you to apply it, not simply believe in it.
Ethics cannot be based upon our obligations toward people, but they are complete and natural only when we feel this Reverence for Life and the desire to have compassion for and to help all creatures insofar as it is in our power. I think that this ethic will become more and more recognized because of its great naturalness and because it is the foundation of a true humanism toward which we must strive if our culture is to become truly ethical.
The conclusion forced upon me in the course of a life devoted to natural science is that the universe as it is assumed to be in physical science is only an idealized world, while the real universe is the spiritual universe in which spiritual values count for everything.
The ethical view of the universe involves us in so many cruel and absurd contradictions that I have come to suspect that the aim of creation cannot be ethical at all.
In separating out, say, legal and moral requirements, I tend to work with paradigms rather than strict divisions - eg, paradigmatically, legal requirements are jurisdictionally bound whereas ethical requirements are aspirationally universal; ethical requirements focus especially on intentions whereas legal requirements focus primarily on conduct; ethical requirements take priority over legal requirements; and so on.
We are now becoming more aware of our links to the universe and are reaching out to the universe for knowledge. We are evolving from earth creatures to star creatures. Our minds now explore the worlds beyond, and we sense a destiny beyond this planet.
If religion is the establishing of a relationship between man and the universe, then morality is the explanation of those activities that automatically result when a person maintains a relationship to the universe.
Related Authors
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes
German
Theologian
Ernest Holmes Quotes
American
Theologian
Francis Schaeffer Quotes
American
Theologian
Huston Smith Quotes
American
Theologian
Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes
German
Theologian
John Calvin Quotes
French
Theologian
John Owen Quotes
English
Theologian
Karl Barth Quotes
Swiss
Theologian
Kevin DeYoung Quotes
American
Theologian
Mary Baker Eddy Quotes
American
Theologian
Oswald Chambers Quotes
Scottish
Theologian
Paul Tillich Quotes
German
Theologian
Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
American
Theologian
Samuel Rutherford Quotes
Scottish
Theologian
Stanley Hauerwas Quotes
American
Theologian
Thomas Aquinas Quotes
Italian
Theologian