A Quote by Steve Allen
The fundamentalist believer is mostly a weird intellectual who often lacks real faith altogether. As a self-appointed attorney for God, who is in no need of attorneys, he very easily turns out to be more godless than the agnostic and the unbeliever. At all events, he seems deaf to poetry.
Related Quotes
Judicial excellence requires an understanding that the law is more than an intellectual game and more than a mental exercise. He or she must recognize that real people with real problems are affected by the decisions rendered by the court. Justice, after all, may be blind, but it should not be deaf.
Mysteries do not lose their poetry when solved. Quite the contrary; the solution often turns out more beautiful than the puzzle and, in any case, when you have solved one mystery you uncover others, perhaps to inspire greater poetry
Beginning a poem, the poet as a rule doesn't know the way it's going to come out, and at times, he is very surprised by the way it turns out, since often it turns out better than he expected; often his thought carries further than he reckoned.
A very real barrier to faith is this feeling of self-sufficiency, this unrealistic idea that one can accomplish everything by his or her own self. Some people have the conviction they must do it all alone. They have no faith in others. . . they are convinced that there is no one able to do the job as well as themselves. They refuse to admit that they may need the help of friends, doctor, minister, or even God.
Tenants don't have any right to court-appointed attorneys in civil court, so they're either facing their landlord - or his or her attorney - alone, or they just don't show up. That reflects a severe power imbalance.
Poetry and music are the best at the highest level of the human mind. Out of poetry, out of their need for poetry, human beings have developed the idea of God. And so when we sing, when we dance, when we speak poetry we are speaking out of God's mouth, each other out of the music from God's heart.
Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular? Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?
I still don't like the word agnostic. It's too fancy. I'm simply not a believer. But, as simple as this notion is, it confuses some people. Someone wrote a Wikipedia entry about me, identifying me as an atheist because I'd said in a book I wrote that I wasn't a believer. I guess in a world uncomfortable with uncertainty, an unbeliever must be an atheist, and possibly an infidel. This gets us back to that most pressing of human questions: why do people worry so much about other people's holding beliefs other than their own?
It often seems easier not to move on; even the muck and mire in which we're stuck seems less fearful and less challenging than the unknown path ahead. Some people use faith as a reason to remain stuck. They often say, "I have faith, so I'm waiting." But faith is not complacent; faith is action. You don't have faith and wait. When you have faith, you move. Complacency actually shows lack of faith. When it's time to move in a new direction in order to progress, the right people will come to us.
Sometimes fiction is more easily understood than true events. Reality is often pathetic.
In this nonfundamentalist understanding of faith, practice is more important than theory, love more important than law, and mystery is seen as an insight into truth rather than an obstacle. It is the great lie of our time that all religious faith has to be fundamentalist to be valid.
Both need each other: The agnostic cannot be content to not know, but must be in search of the great truth of faith; the Catholic cannot be content to have faith, but must be in search of God all the time, and in the dialogue with others, a Catholic can learn more about God in a deeper fashion.
The abundance of a grateful heart gives honor to God even if it does not turn to Him in words. An unbeliever who is filled with thanks for his very being has ceased to be an unbeliever.
Poetry can save the world. I'm a real believer in its power of healing and transforming. I wish more people read it ... Poetry is probably as close as I would get to religious feeling. I think poetry makes the world stand still.
If you could make something one percent smarter than a human, your artificial attorney or accountant would be better than all the attorneys or accountants out there. You would be the richest person in the world. People are chasing that.
It turns out that our notions of what a 'self' is and how it might feel fulfilled have no more objective status than most of the rest of reality. It seems we make ourselves up as we go along.
Related Authors
Adam Carolla Quotes
American
Entertainer
Andrew Flintoff Quotes
English
Entertainer
Conan O'Brien Quotes
American
Entertainer
David Copperfield Quotes
American
Entertainer
Dick Cavett Quotes
American
Entertainer
Earl Nightingale Quotes
American
Entertainer
Jamie Hyneman Quotes
American
Entertainer
Jon Stewart Quotes
American
Entertainer
Khloe Kardashian Quotes
American
Entertainer
Marc Maron Quotes
American
Entertainer
Martha Stewart Quotes
American
Entertainer
Oprah Winfrey Quotes
American
Entertainer
Penn Jillette Quotes
American
Entertainer
RuPaul Quotes
American
Entertainer
Rush Limbaugh Quotes
American
Entertainer
Simon Cowell Quotes
British
Entertainer