I have a friend who is newly 5 years old, and is fighting a cancer that is spread throughout his body. His mother is a woman of great faith, and - as the family is in the throws of a full-on battle with this cancer - has the fortitude to be an inspiration to others. This is her latest journal entry. I a humbled by her faith, humbled by this little boy's faith, and humbled by all of their strength.
Friday, November 27, 2009 11:21 PM, EST
We are headed into the hospital Monday for another week, more chemo.
It’s not easy for any child to be in the hospital. Early in Everest’s hospitalization, I shared with family/friends that I was concerned about him managing the hospital and all it entailed with his sensitivities. Has the cancer, pain, and the extreme month of tests, transition and treatment escalated how he sees his experience and responds to it? Yes. Yet I’ve been realizing cancer or no cancer, Everest is who he is…loving, creative, restless, strong, sensitive, driven, challenging, brave, curious, stubborn, thoughtful, and always beautiful….He’s our Everest. We give thanks.
Such thanks in this light allows me to recognize that the traits I first worried about when looking at “How do we get him through treatment???” are likely the exact traits required of him to climb this mountain. Sensitivity makes him extremely aware of what is going on around him. Even though sometimes he may not have the words to address things, he is a participant in all that is happening and his being will not allow him to be anything else. Awareness brings strength. Stubbornness means it takes a heck of a lot to get medicine down him at times, but it’s that same drive that will fight, fight, fight. Giving thanks for all parts of him I am reminded where we each need to be, about ourselves and in how we see others.
In our home we talk about being a child of God and celebrating that we are God’s children. In everyday activities and with our congregation, Good Shepherd, (who bless their hearts accept we don’t always make it there every Sunday, or with two young kids roll in late!) Everest sees gifts in each person he meets. While enjoying stories and pictures sent from many of you he asked, “How do they ALL know I am here?” We talked about how it was important for us to tell people who love him that he wasn’t feeling well, so they could share prayers for him to get better and good thoughts to help him feel comfortable in treatment. My words came out, “Because you are a very special child of God.”
His response was immediate and strong, “BUT MOM…EVERYBODY IS A CHILD OF GOD!” I tried to be a bit more specific, only to be met with the same response even louder. “EVERYBODY!” To Everest, every life is special and valuable. If only we could package that and sell it, but I know it spreads….It spreads.
So, as we pack bags to head back in, and my mind knows all of this I have shared with you, please send prayers, warm thoughts, and peace our way. The minute we get on the floor, my heart will again need reminders to keep celebrating every day, every person, every part….even when I am tired and not seeing as clearly. I thank God for Bill as well. He brings me back when needed and holds a caring, calming strength. We are a team.
(Also, though Grandma Sandy is as strong as they come, she has been ill and receiving treatment for an intestinal illness. She is on the mend, but has struggled as all she wanted to do is be here and play with her Everest. Please keep her in mind as well.)
Finally, thanks to friend Ruth (the Elder) for the hymn reminders. I have been in prayer in a very meditative sense; seeking quiet spaces, walks, chapels. But yesterday I sang in the tub! It was full of spirit and needed.
Here we go! Everest is strong, like a mountain. He’ll again climb another stretch of his journey as only he can. -Liz
The “tub hymn” for those who wish to raise their voice for Everest…
Earth and all stars! loud rushing planets sing to the Lord a new song!
Oh, victory! Loud hosts of heaven sing to the Lord a new song!
Refrain:
God has done marvelous things.
I too, I too sing praises with a new song! (repeat)
Hail, wind, and rain! loud blowing snowstorm sing to the Lord a new song!
Flowers and trees! loud rustling dry leaves sing to the Lord a new song!.....
(Refrain)
Trumpet and pipes! loud clashing cymbals sing to the Lord a new song!
Harp, lute, and lyre! loud humming cellos sing to the Lord a new song!.....
( Refrain)
Engines and steel! loud pounding hammers sing to the Lord a new song!
Limestone and beams! loud building workers sing to the Lord a new song!.....
( Refrain)
Knowledge and truth! loud sounding wisdom sing to the Lord a new song!
Daughter and son! loud praising members sing to the Lord a new song!.....
( Refrain)
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
An Encounter
Odd, what happens in the check-out line at Walmart sometimes. Today, as I was loading my groceries on the belt, I noticed a book on angels and miracles amongst the People magazines and National Enquirers. I picked it up briefly, glanced at it, and then put it back on the shelf, going about my business. A few minutes later, an elderly gentleman behind me did the same thing. Then, he tapped me on the shoulder.
"Do you mind if I tell you a story about a REAL angel encounter?" I told him I didn't mind at all.
He then proceeded to tell me that he was a crisis chaplain for the military. He was counselling a man who had been in the elite forces in Cambodia years ago, a group of 31 men sent to capture Pol Pot. They never got him, but captured (and beheaded) several of his hench men. Upon their return to the states, all but 5 of those men died from self-inflicted injuries - suicide, drugs, alcohol. This man that he was counselling was one of the last five left, and he had contacted this chaplain because he wanted him to preach at his funeral. He was planning on committing suicide in the near future, and was making his arrangements. The chaplain called a friend, and together they prayed that angels would protect this man from harm until he had a chance to know God. Two days later, he received another call from the vetran. He said that he had been out in his field, riding his tractor, when the tractor went over an embankment and rolled. Twice. On top of him. It was heading for a third time - a blow that would surely have killed him -- when a large, bright figure stopped the tractor. Just as it was about to crush him. This man was not a believer, and he was afraid to tell anyone about what had happened to him, afraid he was going insane. So he called this chaplain - the one he wanted to preach at his funeral. The one who had prayed not two days earlier for angels to protect him. And the one who is now leading this man to know his Father.
The man behind me in the Walmart check out line had tears in his eyes as he told me this story. I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. So I muttered something about "WOW", and then kept unloading my groceries. There was awkward silence on both our parts, but I kept feeling like I needed to say MORE. After a few minutes had passed, I turned to him.
"Well, I believe in angels, too. My son was miraculously healed. His kidney." And then I had tears in my eyes, too -- talking to this perfect stranger about precious, private things. He just looked at me, and said "I don't normally talk to people about this stuff, but the Holy Spirit prompted me to talk to you. You are a believer?"
"Yes," I said. He nodded.
"This world needs all the believers it can get right now."
I agreed. And then there was nothing more to say, and I paid the cashier, gathered my children, and left.
One can truly encounter God anywhere. Even in Walmart.
"Do you mind if I tell you a story about a REAL angel encounter?" I told him I didn't mind at all.
He then proceeded to tell me that he was a crisis chaplain for the military. He was counselling a man who had been in the elite forces in Cambodia years ago, a group of 31 men sent to capture Pol Pot. They never got him, but captured (and beheaded) several of his hench men. Upon their return to the states, all but 5 of those men died from self-inflicted injuries - suicide, drugs, alcohol. This man that he was counselling was one of the last five left, and he had contacted this chaplain because he wanted him to preach at his funeral. He was planning on committing suicide in the near future, and was making his arrangements. The chaplain called a friend, and together they prayed that angels would protect this man from harm until he had a chance to know God. Two days later, he received another call from the vetran. He said that he had been out in his field, riding his tractor, when the tractor went over an embankment and rolled. Twice. On top of him. It was heading for a third time - a blow that would surely have killed him -- when a large, bright figure stopped the tractor. Just as it was about to crush him. This man was not a believer, and he was afraid to tell anyone about what had happened to him, afraid he was going insane. So he called this chaplain - the one he wanted to preach at his funeral. The one who had prayed not two days earlier for angels to protect him. And the one who is now leading this man to know his Father.
The man behind me in the Walmart check out line had tears in his eyes as he told me this story. I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. So I muttered something about "WOW", and then kept unloading my groceries. There was awkward silence on both our parts, but I kept feeling like I needed to say MORE. After a few minutes had passed, I turned to him.
"Well, I believe in angels, too. My son was miraculously healed. His kidney." And then I had tears in my eyes, too -- talking to this perfect stranger about precious, private things. He just looked at me, and said "I don't normally talk to people about this stuff, but the Holy Spirit prompted me to talk to you. You are a believer?"
"Yes," I said. He nodded.
"This world needs all the believers it can get right now."
I agreed. And then there was nothing more to say, and I paid the cashier, gathered my children, and left.
One can truly encounter God anywhere. Even in Walmart.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
On Calvinism and Free Will, part 2
God is not on a power trip.
Why does God want us to obey Him? So He can prove He’s “in control?” That He’s “da Man?” Why then, is “the fulfillment of the law” LOVE? (Galatians 5:14)
The Law does not state “you shall wear green on odd Thursdays”. They are not pointless, endless laws to obey with no purpose. The law of God was obviously not established for the sole purpose of bending us to His will, although He very well could have made it that way. He is all-powerful, our Creator. He can do whatever He wants. If His only goal was to control us, then the Law would be random. But it isn’t. Even the laws and commands that made no sense at the time (washing hands before you eat? WHY?) make sense in the light of retrospection. NOW we know why it’s important to have clean hands before you eat, even if the scientific data to support that was another few thousand years in coming.
Look at God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Do we think God was doing a trial run for human sacrifice? Do you think Abraham had ANY idea why God would possibly want Abraham to kill the son God had so miraculously blessed him with in his old age? Why would God do such a thing? Abraham didn’t question God’s purposes, though. He just obeyed. In light of the New Testament, however (thousands of years later), we can get an inkling of what God was thinking with this command to His faithful servant. We realize, with a giant “AHA” moment, that God knew HE would give up HIS son as sacrifice for US, because He loves us so much. He wanted to know that some one of His creatures would sacrifice as much for Him. God did not caprciously order Abraham to do anything. There was a purpose. And that purpose was LOVE.
I feel like our time here on earth is essentially our infancy, to prepare us for the “adulthood” of a “new Heaven and a new Earth”, which we are gifted to partake of through our Savior’s sacrifice. Our lives here are but a training ground. God is our Father, and just as an earthly parent sets down “the rules”, so does He. Our rules as a parent aren’t random, though. They’re designed to mold our children into thinking, moral adults. As such, we allow our children to make mistakes, and suffer the natural consequences of those mistakes. Not that we don’t WANT them to obey us every time, and that we couldn’t MAKE them obey us every time. A good parent, though, knows when to back off and let the child experience for themselves the consequences of their own actions, in order to learn the lesson well. To prepare them for making the right choice the next time. To prepare them for being an adult. We don’t leave them alone. Even when they’re making a bad choice, we’re in the distance, watching, making sure they don’t fall too far to get seriously hurt. We’re saying to them “remember what I taught you!” We’re prompting them, guiding them. But ultimately, we let the child old enough to make a right decision the opportunity to MAKE that decision. “I taught you to wear a coat outside so you don’t get cold. Now that you’re 10 – if you don’t wear your coat, then…. Get cold!”
Why do we allow our children to make choices, even when they are BAD choices? Why do we give them FREE WILL? Because we love them, and we want them to love us, and we want them to learn to eventually become the people we want them to become. A parent who makes every last decision for a child ends up with an adult who is incapable and weak. Our God is no less of a parent to us.
I feel that there is a fear out there that if we say we have the ability to make a free choice in our response to God, that it means somehow that He is not in TOTAL CONTROL, and that it belittles His power. This is not true in the least. Man has the ability to make something that he totally controls - he has the intellect and power to make a robot. It obeys a man's every command. TRUE power and genius comes from creating something that can think and feel and reason for itself. Man hasn't even come CLOSE to the genius of the Father.
He allows us FREE WILL, not because He CAN’T control us, but He chooses not to – for Love’s sake.
Why does God want us to obey Him? So He can prove He’s “in control?” That He’s “da Man?” Why then, is “the fulfillment of the law” LOVE? (Galatians 5:14)
The Law does not state “you shall wear green on odd Thursdays”. They are not pointless, endless laws to obey with no purpose. The law of God was obviously not established for the sole purpose of bending us to His will, although He very well could have made it that way. He is all-powerful, our Creator. He can do whatever He wants. If His only goal was to control us, then the Law would be random. But it isn’t. Even the laws and commands that made no sense at the time (washing hands before you eat? WHY?) make sense in the light of retrospection. NOW we know why it’s important to have clean hands before you eat, even if the scientific data to support that was another few thousand years in coming.
Look at God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Do we think God was doing a trial run for human sacrifice? Do you think Abraham had ANY idea why God would possibly want Abraham to kill the son God had so miraculously blessed him with in his old age? Why would God do such a thing? Abraham didn’t question God’s purposes, though. He just obeyed. In light of the New Testament, however (thousands of years later), we can get an inkling of what God was thinking with this command to His faithful servant. We realize, with a giant “AHA” moment, that God knew HE would give up HIS son as sacrifice for US, because He loves us so much. He wanted to know that some one of His creatures would sacrifice as much for Him. God did not caprciously order Abraham to do anything. There was a purpose. And that purpose was LOVE.
I feel like our time here on earth is essentially our infancy, to prepare us for the “adulthood” of a “new Heaven and a new Earth”, which we are gifted to partake of through our Savior’s sacrifice. Our lives here are but a training ground. God is our Father, and just as an earthly parent sets down “the rules”, so does He. Our rules as a parent aren’t random, though. They’re designed to mold our children into thinking, moral adults. As such, we allow our children to make mistakes, and suffer the natural consequences of those mistakes. Not that we don’t WANT them to obey us every time, and that we couldn’t MAKE them obey us every time. A good parent, though, knows when to back off and let the child experience for themselves the consequences of their own actions, in order to learn the lesson well. To prepare them for making the right choice the next time. To prepare them for being an adult. We don’t leave them alone. Even when they’re making a bad choice, we’re in the distance, watching, making sure they don’t fall too far to get seriously hurt. We’re saying to them “remember what I taught you!” We’re prompting them, guiding them. But ultimately, we let the child old enough to make a right decision the opportunity to MAKE that decision. “I taught you to wear a coat outside so you don’t get cold. Now that you’re 10 – if you don’t wear your coat, then…. Get cold!”
Why do we allow our children to make choices, even when they are BAD choices? Why do we give them FREE WILL? Because we love them, and we want them to love us, and we want them to learn to eventually become the people we want them to become. A parent who makes every last decision for a child ends up with an adult who is incapable and weak. Our God is no less of a parent to us.
I feel that there is a fear out there that if we say we have the ability to make a free choice in our response to God, that it means somehow that He is not in TOTAL CONTROL, and that it belittles His power. This is not true in the least. Man has the ability to make something that he totally controls - he has the intellect and power to make a robot. It obeys a man's every command. TRUE power and genius comes from creating something that can think and feel and reason for itself. Man hasn't even come CLOSE to the genius of the Father.
He allows us FREE WILL, not because He CAN’T control us, but He chooses not to – for Love’s sake.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
On Calvinism and Free Will
Our God is a sovreign God. He is all-powerful, and is capable of total control. The question, however, arises.... does He utilize that total control? Or does He, in His infinite wisdom, allow us to make a choice in response to His leading, His prompting, and His calling? Does He pre-ordain his "elect", or allow His children free-will in choosing Him?
The problem starts with the idea of the Total Depravity of Man... utter and complete. Man is a creation of the Father, and made in His image. Man is a recipient of His love. "And God saw that it was good". From the beginning, however, we chose to move away from that perfect love, through our disobedience. The Great Fall separated us from intimate union with God. Did Adam and Eve's decision rid all future generations of any worth? I look at an unwanted child, whom our society has deemed "worthless". We intrinsically base that child's worth on whether or not it is loved and wanted by it's parents - we base that child's right to LIFE on whether or not it is loved and wanted by it's parents. So we inherently and subconciously base WORTH on love. What we, in our short-sightedness, fail to remember, is that even that unwanted child is loved by the Father of creation, and therefore has worth. Our worth stems not from ourselves, but from God. A canvas and paint is of no value in and of itself. Only through the mastery of the Artist does it become priceless.
Evil is the opposite of Good. Sin moves us away from God, as Love draws us toward Him. Can God love what is the opposite of Himself? That which propels away from Him? Yet he loves us repeatedly and completely. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16) God IS love. And our worth as recipients of that love comes not of our inherent selves, but only as a consequence of Him, and being His created being.
This idea of Utter Depravity leads to the concept that we are not CAPABLE of doing anything in our relationship to God, and not WORTHY of being an active participant. Thus the idea of pre-destination... that God chooses only those whom He wants beforehand, controls them to His purposes, and elects them for salvation. But is the opposite also true, then? Would an all-loving God predestine His own child to Hell? Would God purposely give up a SINGLE one of His children? Would a loving father or mother condemn one of their children from its first breath out of the womb? Would an Artist create a masterpiece for the sole purpose of burning it? Could we believe even for one moment that Jesus died for the atonement of only a few, and not for the many? What parent would give up his life for one of his children, and not the others?
Without worth, there can be no free will. And without free will there is no merit (nothing we do can be deemed "good", because it is God controlling us for His purposes). On the same token, though, without free-will there is no GUILT. If I am merely a pawn, then those choices I make that are disobedient are also not of my doing. Without guilt there is no REPENTENCE, and without repentence there is no SALVATION. The inherent worth of a man given to us by God our Father makes us capable of responding to His touch, makes us able to make a choice to obey Him, have faith in Him. We are worthy of taking responsibility for the wrong choices we make, and that responsibility grants us our NEED for God and salavation. Read Genesis 1:31. "God looked at everything He had made, and found it very good." Now read Genesis 6:5-7. "When the Lord saw how great was man's wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, He regretted that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was grieved." How do you get from "very good" to "ever anything but evil"? Free will. How do you explain the fall of man? Free will. God's heart was grieved, because it was not HIS plan for us to fail as miserably as we did. Not that He couldn't have made things differently. But He chose not to.
God is infintiley wise, and knows us better than we know ourselves. Predestination is not the same as preknowledge. God is omnipotent and outside of time, and knows which decisions we will make before we make them. But they are still OUR decisions to make, right or wrong - towards God or away from Him. He chooses NOT to control us. We humans, as pitiful as we are, constantly put God on the judgement seat, to see if He is worthy of our faith in Him. We creatures put the God of All Creation on the "dock", when, in reality, it is we who are being judged on how we live our life for HIM. He prompts us through the Spirit, and then allows us the choice to obey that call, because the fufillment of the law is LOVE, and love cannot be compelled. Love is a choice, not a feeling. God wants us to love Him, but He would never compel us to do so. Would God deny anyone who comes to the foot of the cross with a sincere desire and true repentence? As John 3:16 states so succinctly, God LOVES US. It is WE who choose to reject HIM through our unbelief- never the other way around. And our choice is our Free Will. For good or bad. Not that God CAN'T control us, but that He chooses not to. For Love's sake.
C.S. Lewis states it far more eloquently than I ever could....
"(God) could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers; or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaires. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to co-operate in the execution of His will. 'God', said Pascal, 'instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.' But not only prayer; whenever we act at all He lends us that dignity. It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God's mind - that is, His over-all purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.... He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly in the twinkling of an eye. We are not mere recipients or spectators. We are either priveleged to share in the game or compelled to collaborate in the work, to weild our little tridents."
The problem starts with the idea of the Total Depravity of Man... utter and complete. Man is a creation of the Father, and made in His image. Man is a recipient of His love. "And God saw that it was good". From the beginning, however, we chose to move away from that perfect love, through our disobedience. The Great Fall separated us from intimate union with God. Did Adam and Eve's decision rid all future generations of any worth? I look at an unwanted child, whom our society has deemed "worthless". We intrinsically base that child's worth on whether or not it is loved and wanted by it's parents - we base that child's right to LIFE on whether or not it is loved and wanted by it's parents. So we inherently and subconciously base WORTH on love. What we, in our short-sightedness, fail to remember, is that even that unwanted child is loved by the Father of creation, and therefore has worth. Our worth stems not from ourselves, but from God. A canvas and paint is of no value in and of itself. Only through the mastery of the Artist does it become priceless.
Evil is the opposite of Good. Sin moves us away from God, as Love draws us toward Him. Can God love what is the opposite of Himself? That which propels away from Him? Yet he loves us repeatedly and completely. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16) God IS love. And our worth as recipients of that love comes not of our inherent selves, but only as a consequence of Him, and being His created being.
This idea of Utter Depravity leads to the concept that we are not CAPABLE of doing anything in our relationship to God, and not WORTHY of being an active participant. Thus the idea of pre-destination... that God chooses only those whom He wants beforehand, controls them to His purposes, and elects them for salvation. But is the opposite also true, then? Would an all-loving God predestine His own child to Hell? Would God purposely give up a SINGLE one of His children? Would a loving father or mother condemn one of their children from its first breath out of the womb? Would an Artist create a masterpiece for the sole purpose of burning it? Could we believe even for one moment that Jesus died for the atonement of only a few, and not for the many? What parent would give up his life for one of his children, and not the others?
Without worth, there can be no free will. And without free will there is no merit (nothing we do can be deemed "good", because it is God controlling us for His purposes). On the same token, though, without free-will there is no GUILT. If I am merely a pawn, then those choices I make that are disobedient are also not of my doing. Without guilt there is no REPENTENCE, and without repentence there is no SALVATION. The inherent worth of a man given to us by God our Father makes us capable of responding to His touch, makes us able to make a choice to obey Him, have faith in Him. We are worthy of taking responsibility for the wrong choices we make, and that responsibility grants us our NEED for God and salavation. Read Genesis 1:31. "God looked at everything He had made, and found it very good." Now read Genesis 6:5-7. "When the Lord saw how great was man's wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, He regretted that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was grieved." How do you get from "very good" to "ever anything but evil"? Free will. How do you explain the fall of man? Free will. God's heart was grieved, because it was not HIS plan for us to fail as miserably as we did. Not that He couldn't have made things differently. But He chose not to.
God is infintiley wise, and knows us better than we know ourselves. Predestination is not the same as preknowledge. God is omnipotent and outside of time, and knows which decisions we will make before we make them. But they are still OUR decisions to make, right or wrong - towards God or away from Him. He chooses NOT to control us. We humans, as pitiful as we are, constantly put God on the judgement seat, to see if He is worthy of our faith in Him. We creatures put the God of All Creation on the "dock", when, in reality, it is we who are being judged on how we live our life for HIM. He prompts us through the Spirit, and then allows us the choice to obey that call, because the fufillment of the law is LOVE, and love cannot be compelled. Love is a choice, not a feeling. God wants us to love Him, but He would never compel us to do so. Would God deny anyone who comes to the foot of the cross with a sincere desire and true repentence? As John 3:16 states so succinctly, God LOVES US. It is WE who choose to reject HIM through our unbelief- never the other way around. And our choice is our Free Will. For good or bad. Not that God CAN'T control us, but that He chooses not to. For Love's sake.
C.S. Lewis states it far more eloquently than I ever could....
"(God) could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers; or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaires. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to co-operate in the execution of His will. 'God', said Pascal, 'instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.' But not only prayer; whenever we act at all He lends us that dignity. It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God's mind - that is, His over-all purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.... He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly in the twinkling of an eye. We are not mere recipients or spectators. We are either priveleged to share in the game or compelled to collaborate in the work, to weild our little tridents."
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Quotes from one of my favorite Authors
G.K. Chesterton is one of my favorite authors. He just had such an abundance of common sense. These quotes are so applicable to today's world, that it's hard to believe that the man lived at the turn of the last century. Here's some of his quotes:
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."
"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."
"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance."
"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."
"The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right."
"Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it."
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around."
"War is not 'the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you."
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man."
"Love means loving the unlovable - or it is no virtue at all."
"If there were no God, there would be no atheists."
"There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions."
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."
"Theology is only thought applied to religion."
"The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice."
"Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it."
"It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong."
"Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice."
"All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive."
"Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities."
"[No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them."
"We are learning to do a great many clever things...The next great task will be to learn not to do them.-
"Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it." –
"When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded."
"There is no bigot like the atheist."
"Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle."
"There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life."
"There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there."
"Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break."
The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust."
"I might inform those humanitarians who have a nightmare of new and needless babies (for some humanitarians have that sort of horror of humanity) that if the recent decline in the birth-rate were continued for a certain time, it might end in there being no babies at all; which would console them very much".
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."
"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."
"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance."
"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."
"The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right."
"Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it."
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around."
"War is not 'the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you."
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man."
"Love means loving the unlovable - or it is no virtue at all."
"If there were no God, there would be no atheists."
"There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions."
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."
"Theology is only thought applied to religion."
"The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice."
"Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it."
"It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong."
"Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice."
"All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive."
"Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities."
"[No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them."
"We are learning to do a great many clever things...The next great task will be to learn not to do them.-
"Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it." –
"When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded."
"There is no bigot like the atheist."
"Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle."
"There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life."
"There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there."
"Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break."
The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust."
"I might inform those humanitarians who have a nightmare of new and needless babies (for some humanitarians have that sort of horror of humanity) that if the recent decline in the birth-rate were continued for a certain time, it might end in there being no babies at all; which would console them very much".
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