A Quote by Robert A. Heinlein
I've never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one true religion by faith-it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.
Related Quotes
I’ve never been able to understand ‘faith’ myself, nor to see how a just God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion out of an infinitude of false ones — by faith alone. It strikes me as a sloppy way to run an organization, whether a universe or a smaller one.
That's true that I'm "not religious as that term is conventionally understood," though I've never been an atheist. Atheism is an active faith; it says, "I believe there is no God." But I don't know what I believe. I was brought up a Lutheran in Jamestown, North Dakota. I have trouble with faith. I'm not proud of this. I don't think it makes me an intellectual. I would believe if I could, and I may be able to before it's over. I would welcome that.
The blessed Paul argues that we are saved by faith, which he declares to be not from us but a gift from God. Thus there cannot possibly be true salvation where there is no true faith, and, since this faith is divinely enabled, it is without doubt bestowed by his free generosity. Where there is true belief through true faith, true salvation certainly accompanies it. Anyone who departs from true faith will not possess the grace of true salvation.
Faith is indeed the energy of our whole universe directed to the highest form of being. Faith gives stability to our view of the universe. By faith we are convinced that our impressions of things without are not dreams or delusions, but, for us, true representations of our environment. By faith we are convinced that the signs of permanence, order, progress, which we observe in nature are true. By faith we are convinced that fellowship is possible with our fellow man and with God.
The god of Judaism is the devil. The Jew will not be recognized by God as one of His chosen people until he abandons his demonic religion and returns to the faith of his fathers--the faith which embraces Jesus Christ and His Gospel.
The tribal community lived in the totality of circular time; the farmers of God's universe understood before and after; workers of the clockwork universe lived by the tick; and we creatures of the digital era must relate to the pulse.
Believing in religion is an insult to God, because God means high intelligence and what intelligence there is in religion? Let us save the God from the religion, from fables for children! God has never spoken yet; He has been remaining in silent for millions of years somewhere outside our universe!
Pseudo faith always arranges a way out to serve in case God fails it. Real faith knows only one way and gladly allows itself to be stripped of any second way or makeshift substitutes. For true faith, it is either God or total collapse.
True religion is when you serve God to get nothing else but more of God. Many people use religion as a way of getting something else from God they want-blessings, rewards, even escape from judgement. This is wearisome to us, and to God. But when God is His own reward, Christianity becomes thrilling. Sacrifice becomes joy.
I never understood how anyone could feel small compared with the universe. After all, man knows how overwhelmingly large it is, and a few others things besides, and that means he is not small. The fact that man has discovered all this precisely proves his greatness.
I have to ask myself how I can possibly expect to know Jesus as he would want to be known if my life remains unscathed by trouble and grief. How can I hope to grasp anything of God's heart for this broken planet if I never weep because its brokenness touches me and breaks my heart? How can I reflect his image if I never share in his sufferings? And how will any of us ever learn to treasure his hesed and grace if we never experience phases where these blessings seem absent?
Assuming the universe came from nothing, it is empty to begin with... Only by the constant action of an agent outside the universe, such as God, could a state of nothingness be maintained. The fact that we have something is just what we would expect if there is no God.
He told me once that there was no better faith than a wounded faith and sometimes I wonder if that is what he was doing all along --trying to wound his faith in order to test it--and I was just another stone in the way of his God.
God loves to see his creatures happy; our lawful delight is His; they know not God that think to please Him with making themselves miserable. The idolaters thought it a fit service for Baal to cut and lance themselves; never any holy man looked for thanks from the true God by wronging himself.
Let me remind you that this is God's universe, and He is doing things His way. You may think you have a better way, but you don't have a universe to rule.
What strikes me about Jesus is that he is a remarkably true person; he never changes his personality to fit in with whatever crowd he finds himself. He is simply himself, and he never plays to his audience.
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