Deep Thoughts
"I say that religion isn't about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness."
- Karen Armstrong
"My work has continually brought me back to the notion of compassion. Whichever religious tradition I study, I find at the heart of it is the idea of feeling with the other, experiencing with the other, compassion. And every single one of the major world religions has developed its own version of the Golden Rule. Don't do to others what you would not like them to do to you. ....We've got to do better than this. Compassion doesn't mean feeling sorry for people. It doesn't mean pity. It means putting yourself in the position of the other, learning about the other. Learning what's motivating the other, learning about their grievances."
- Karen Armstrong
In the days following the tragic South Asian tsunami of 2004, the Rev. Tom Honey pondered the question, “How could a loving God have done this?” Here is his answer.
- Tom Honey
Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created.
A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.
- Gian Carlo Menotti
"It is possible for those who were previously enemies to become friends. I usually say, an enemy is a friend waiting to be made."
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu
For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I, too, abide
To dispel the misery of the world.
- Dalai Lama
The world is perfect, and the human opportunity is to see that and conform to that fact.
- Huston Smith
We are all doing the best we can given our level of awareness.
- Deepak Chopra
We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
- Carl Sagan
If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.
- Richard Dawkins
What follows is delusion: that we can exist outside the whole. We convince ourselves of this in spite of being begot by others, begetting others, living thanks to the consideration of others, the self-control of others, the bridges built by, bread baked by, words written by others. By the other.
- John Ralston Saul
"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile..."
- Robert F. Kennedy Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 18, 1968
A new science is emerging whose operating principles and assumptions are more
compatible with empathic ways of thinking. The old science views nature as objects;
the new science views nature as relationships. The old science is characterized by
detachment, expropriation, dissection, and reduction; the new science is
characterized by engagement, replenishment, integration, and holism. The old
science is committed to making nature productive; the new science to making
nature sustainable. The old science seeks power over nature; the new science seeks
partnership with nature. The old science puts a premium on autonomy from nature;
the new science on reparticipation with nature.