Quotes about God [ Authors L to Z ]

C.S. Lewis: "I think we must attack -- wherever we meet it -- the nonsensical idea that mutually exclusive propositions about God can both be true."


Thomas A. Lewis, posting to an Amazon.com chat: "I don't believe in God for the same reason that most people don't believe in Apollo or Zeus. ... God is just human beings' way of personifying an otherwise completely natural universe."


Rev. Mackeral: "... one of the evidences of the greatness of God is that he doesn't have to exist in order to save us." [A paraphrase]


"A Pilgrim:" "Boycotting anti-Christian movies and picketing abortion clinics only serves to fuel the God-haters of this world and leads to even more God-hating. What the unbelieving world needs to see from the Church is a 'peculiar people' who are not of this world, but are truly transformed by the Gospel." From an Amazon.com book review


Sarah Palin: "God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that." From a speech in 2007-JUN at the Wasilla Assembly of God church. 1,2


Pope John Paul II: "An effective proclamation of the Gospel in contemporary Western society will need to confront directly the widespread spirit of agnosticism and relativism which has cast doubt on reason's ability to know the truth, which alone satisfies the human heart's restless quest for meaning."


Anne Provoost: "If your God is going to drown the world; if your God is going to bring a flood, then why don't you pick a different God?"


Ronald Reagan: "Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under." 3


Brian Robertson: "God is diverse and inclusive, not limited and exclusive. You're thinking of a Country Club."


"God is not limited to our own prejudices, hatred, fear and projections. In fact, those very things keep us from experiencing the Mystery and we are to celebrate God wherever that Presence can be glimpsed."



"Setarcos'" posting to an Amazon.com chat: When asked: "I am a religious person but I like to hear people's reasons for not believing in god," Setarcos answered: "Is 'which one?' a good enough answer?


Dorothea Soelle: "God has no other hands than ours. If the sick are to be healed, it is our hands that will heal them. If the lonely and the frightened are to be comforted, it is our embrace, not God's, that will comfort them."


John Spong, retired Episcopal bishop:
"I don't want a God that would go around killing people's little girls. Neither do I want a God who would kill his own son."


"A God who is defined as an external being, supernatural in power, who hands out rewards and punishment according to human deserving, is a rather primitive, childlike deity. This is nonetheless the definition underlying most forms of liturgical worship. No change will occur until this definition is raised to consciousness and dealt with."

George A. Staffa: "Beware of 'God of the Gaps', the Incredible Shrinking Deity who fills the gaps in our understanding until understanding shrinks both gaps and God down to nothing."


UCADIA web site: "...the image of a deity capable to intervening to stop evil but choosing not to act is probably a worse concept than an impotent God that can do nothing." 4


James Watson (co-discoverer of the structure of DNA): "Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours." 5


Steven Weinberg: "I don't need to argue here that the evil in the world proves that the universe is not designed, but only that there are no signs of benevolence that might have shown the hand of a designer. But in fact the perception that God cannot be benevolent is very old. Plays by Aeschylus and Euripides make a quite explicit statement that the gods are selfish and cruel, though they expect better behavior from humans. God in the Old Testament tells us to bash the heads of infidels and demands of us that we be willing to sacrifice our children's lives at His orders, and the God of traditional Christianity and Islam damns us for eternity if we do not worship him in the right manner. Is this a nice way to behave? I know, I know, we are not supposed to judge God according to human standards, but you see the problem here: If we are not yet convinced of His existence, and are looking for signs of His benevolence, then what other standards can we use?"



References used:

religioustolerance.org

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
Gene Johnson, "Iraq war, gas line God's will, Palin said," Associate Press, 2008-SEP-04, at: http://www.adn.com/
Video clip from Sarah Palin's speech. YouTube, at: http://www.youtube.com/
Quoted in the Massachusetts Family Institute's E-Alert for 2004-JUL-09.
"The Existence of God," UCADIA.com, at: http://www.ucadia.com/
Roger Highfield, "DNA pioneers lash out at religion," London Daily Telegraph, 2003-MAR-24, at: http://washingtontimes.com/
Steven Weinbert, "A Designer Universe."