We're [humans] running great risks of doing things that will not be good for us. The cost can be very high indeed if we reach the point where we can't adapt to our own increasingly rapid adaptations. We run the risk of early extinction. So this certainly isn't a triumphalist story, but it is trying to get at what, in the very long run, leads to the amazing creatures that we are.
Robert Neelly BellahLeaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.
Robert Neelly BellahThe problem of the universal is difficult in every case. The universal and the particular can never be separated; they always go hand in hand.
Robert Neelly BellahThat happiness is to be attained through limitless material acquisition is denied by every religion and philosophy known to mankind, but is preached incessantly by every American television set.
Robert Neelly Bellah...for limited purposes only, let me define religion as a set of symbolic forms and acts which relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence.
Robert Neelly BellahOne of the important things about religion is that it is a sphere which is partially protected from selection. Religious creativity occurs when people pull out of the whole selectivity issue. Becoming celibate - obviously you couldn't be less selective that that. Yes, selection is always in the background. But it's not always there in the foreground. If you don't understand that, you're missing a lot.
Robert Neelly Bellah