A Quote by Hans Jonas
It was once religion which threatened us with a last judgment at the end of days. It is now our tortured planet which predicts the arrival of such a day without any heavenly intervention.
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Our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution. Unhappiness is much less difficult to experience. We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other.
It was once religion which told us that we are all sinners because of original sin. It is now the ecology of our planet which pronounces us all to be sinners because of the excessive exploits of human inventiveness.
Our days are numbered. One of the primary goals in our lives should be to prepare for our last day. The legacy we leave is not just in our possessions, but in the quality of our lives. What preparations should we be making now? The greatest waste in all of our earth, which cannot be recycled or reclaimed, is our waste of the time that God has given us each day.
Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.
It is remarkable how I am never quite clear about the motives for any of my decisions. Is that a sign of confusion or inner dishonesty or is it a sign that we are guided without our knowing or is it both ...The reasons one gives for an action to others and to one's self are certainly inadequate. One can give a reason for everything. In the last resort one acts from a level which remains hidden from us. So one can only ask God to judge us and to forgive us.... At the end of the day I can only ask God to give a merciful judgement on today and all its decisions. It is now in his hand.
Any religion which will sacrifice a certain set of human beings for the enjoyment or aggrandizement or advantage of another is no religion. It is a thing which may be allowed, but it is against true religion. Any religion which sacrifices women to the brutality of men is no religion.
There is nothing so charming as the knowledge of literature; of that branch of literature, I mean, which enables us to discover the infinity of things, the immensity of Nature, the heavens, the earth, and the seas; this is that branch which has taught us religion, moderation, magnanimity, and that has rescued the soul from obscurity; to make her see all things above and below, first and last, and between both; it is this that furnishes us wherewith to live well and happily, and guides us to pass our lives without displeasure and without offence.
The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart's happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead.
... Providence conducts us with so much kindness through the different periods of our life, that we scarcely feel the change; our days glide gently and imperceptibly along, like the motion of the hour-hand, which we cannot discover. ... we advance gradually; we are the same to-day as yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day: thus we go on, without perceiving it, which is a miracle of the Providence I adore.
We are nearly always longing for an easy religion, easy to understand and easy to follow; a religion with no mystery, no insoluble problems,no snags; a religion that would allow us to escape from our miserable human condition; a religion in which contact with God spares us all strife, all uncertainty,all suffering and all doubt; in short, a religion without a cross
Metaphysicians have been learning their lessons for the last four thousand years, and it is high time that they should now begin to teach us something. Can any of the tribe inform us why all the operations of the mind are carried on with undiminished strength and activity in dreams, except the judgment, which alone is suspended and dormant?
There is a future which is predictable, programmed, scheduled, foreseeable. But there is a future, l'avenir (to come) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected. For me, that is the real future. That which is totally unpredictable. The Other who comes without my being able to anticipate their arrival. So if there is a real future, beyond the other known future, it is l'avenir in that it is the coming of the Other when I am completely unable to foresee their arrival.
A good author, and one who writes carefully, often discovers that the expression of which he has been in search without being able to discover it, and which he has at last found, is that which was the most simple, the most natural, and which seems as if it ought to have presented itself at once, without effort, to the mind.
The best moments on earth are those during which we meditate upon heavenly things in general, when we recognize or defend the truth, that heavenly dweller and denizen. Only then do we truly live. Therefore, the essential interests of the soul require that we should oftener rise above the earth, upwards to heaven, where is our true life, our true country, which shall have no end.
One nonabsolute number is the given time of arrival, which is now known to be one of the most bizarre of mathematical concepts, a number whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself. In other words, the given time of arrival is the one moment of time at which it is impossible that any member of the party will arrive.
An adult human can last 40 days without food, a week without any sleep, three days without water, but only five minutes without air. Yet nothing is more taken for granted than the air we breathe. However, not just any air will do - it must be exquisitely designed to meet our needs. Too little oxygen in the atmosphere will kill us, as will too much.
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