Does religious conviction provide a powerful reason for killing? Undeniably it often does. It also often provides the sole compelling reason for refusing to kill, or for being merciful, or for seeking peace; only the profoundest ignorance of history could prevent one from recognizing this. For the truth is that religion and irreligion are cultural variables, but killing is a human constant.

More simply said, the finite does not add to the infinite but merely expresses the power of the infinite in a limited mode.

If something is worth being rude about, it is worth understanding as well.

The truth of no truths becomes, inevitably, truth: a way of naming being, language, and culture that guards the boundaries of thought against claims it has not validated.

The mind unlearned in reverence, says Bonaventure (1221-1274), is in danger of becoming so captivated by the spectacle of beings as to be altogether forgetful of being in itself; and our mechanistic approach to the world is nothing but ontological obliviousness translated into a living tradition.

Does religious conviction provide a powerful reason for killing? Undeniably it often does. It also often provides the sole compelling reason for refusing to kill, or for being merciful, or for seeking peace; only the profoundest ignorance of history could prevent one from recognizing this. For the truth is that religion and irreligion are cultural variables, but killing is a human constant.

For Thomas Traherne (c. 1636-1674), one of the sanest men who ever lived, to see the world with the eyes of innocence, and so to see it pervaded by a numinous glory, is to see things as they truly are, and to recognize creation as the mirror of God's infinite beauty.