Quotes About Belief

By the age of fifteen, I had convinced myself that nobody could give a reasonable explanation of what he meant by the word 'God' and that it was therefore as meaningless to assert a belief as to assert a disbelief in God. Though this, in a general way, has remained my position ever since, I have always avoided unnecessarily to offend other people holding religious belief by displaying my lack of such belief, or even stating my lack of belief, if I was not challenged.

As belief shrinks from the world, it is more necessary than ever that someone believe. Wild-eyed men in caves. Nuns in black. Monks who do not speak. We are left to believe. Fools, children. Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes.

I am confident that those who believe in belief are wrong. That is, we no more need to preserve the myth of God in order to preserve a just and stable society than we needed to cling to the Gold Standard to keep our currency sound. It was a useful crutch, but we've outgrown it. Denmark, according to a recent study, is the sanest, healthiest, happiest, most crime-free nation in the world, and by and large the Danes simply ignore the God issue. We should certainly hope that those who believe in belief are wrong, because belief is waning fast, and the props are beginning to buckle.

Yoga is existential, experiential, experimental. No belief is required, no faith is needed - only courage to experience. And that's what's lacking. You can believe easily because in belief you are not going to be transformed. Belief is something added to you, something superficial. Your being is not changed; you are not passing through some mutation.

In youth,' he said, speaking as if from a great distance, 'we believe, and the death of belief forces us to disavow all belief. But that disavowal, time softens, and if we do not believe, we hope. Belief is easier to kill, somehow, and its death easier to bear.

Opinion involves belief (for without belief in what we opine we cannot have an opinion), and in the brutes though we often find imagination we never find belief.

The state of mind must be belief, not mere hope or wish. Open-mindedness is essential for belief. Closed minds do not inspire faith, courage, and belief.

If an opinion can eventually go to the determination of a practical belief, it, in so far, becomes itself a practical belief; and every proposition that is not pure metaphysical jargon and chatter must have some possible bearing upon practice.

We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person "to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion." Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against nonbelievers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.

Historical refutation as the definitive refutation.- In former times, one sought to prove that there is no God - today one indicates how the belief that there is a God arose and how this belief acquired its weight and importance: a counter-proof that there is no God thereby becomes superfluous.- When in former times one had refuted the 'proofs of the existence of God' put forward, there always remained the doubt whether better proofs might not be adduced than those just refuted: in those days atheists did not know how to make a clean sweep.

Self - belief is everything. Whether you want to start a law firm or a jewelry business, women get pushback, societally. People will be like, "This is a bad idea." You have to have enough self-belief to see where you're gonna end up and not let anybody derail you.

We are so well trained that we are our own domesticator. We are an autodomesticated animal. We can now domesticate ourselves according to the same belief system we were given, and using the same system of punishment and reward. We punish ourselves when we don't follow the rules according to our belief system; we reward ourselves when we are the "good boy" or "good girl".

Once infected, the individual [infected with a god virus] cannot detect major contradictions in his beliefs and behavior. Belief systems become self-evident to him, and no amount of logical discourse will move him from his belief. If a Mormon and Catholic were to debate the merits of their respective religions, neither could see his own inconsistencies and logical fallacies, but would see the other's quite clearly.

I think that things like curses or whatever - those labels - come from belief systems, universal belief systems. So when you get a global consciousness of something, then that becomes a quote-unquote "truth" for everybody. You know, "This is what happens in the Kennedy family." "This is what happens with the Hemingways." And the more people believe in it, the more it kind of resuscitates the problem; it keeps bringing life to this idea that a curse exists that you can never get out from under.

If we base our belief systems on the humble assumption that the complexities of the world are ontologically beyond our understanding, then maybe our belief systems will make more sense and end up causing less suffering.

Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?

Anybody who gives you a belief system is your enemy, because the belief system becomes the barrier for your eyes, you cannot see the truth.

Trusting people to be creative and constructive when given more freedom does not imply an overly optimistic belief in the perfectibility of human nature. It is, rather, belief that the inevitable errors and sins of the human condition are far better overcome by individuals working together in an environment of trust and freedom and mutual respect than by individuals working under a multitude of rules, regulations, and restraints imposed upon them by another group of imperfect individuals.

Many people functionally share this belief that work has no greater meaning than the paycheck it provides. A natural consequence of this faith commitment is the belief it's okay to do mediocre work so that in your free time you can enjoy your true passions.

It is always a great honour to mention a truth which has not become widespread yet. One of these truths is that man has no soul; he has only 'body' and 'mind'. Man's unshakable belief on the soul will not change this scientific truth! No belief can be higher than the scientific truths! Man can be born, can walk and work and can think without owning a mysterious and an immaterial soul! The soullessness of the man is a great tragedy both for the man and for the religion. But Man, contrary to the religion, will come out with triumph from this tragedy.

I've caught belief like a disease. I've fallen into belief like I fell in love.

The law of your mind is the law of belief. This means to believe in the way your mind works, to believe in belief itself.

Fanatics do not have faith - they have belief. With faith you let go. You trust. Whereas with belief you cling.

The kind of hope I'm talking about is the belief that something good will come. That everything you're going through and everything you've gone through will be worth the struggles and frustrations. The kind of hope I'm talking about is a deep belief that the world can be changed, that the impossible is possible.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

Better a false belief than no belief at all.

Iran rejects weapons of mass destruction based on its belief system, its religious belief system, as well as its ethical standpoint.

As we were baptized, so we profess our belief. As we profess our belief, so also we offer praise. As then baptism has been given us by the Savior, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, so, in accordance with our baptism, we make the confession of the creed, and our doxology in accordance with our creed.

My belief in God is personal, I do not need to browbeat anyone into agreeing with me, because I believe what I believe and I try to live by it. My belief in God is about trying to be the best person I can be in this life.

In order for him to believe sincerely in eternity, others had to share in this belief, because a belief that no one else shares is called schizophrenia.

I've been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that's kind of a religious belief. I mean, it's at least a moral belief.

Atheism is the absence of a belief in a god, nothing more. If the theist wishes to draw monumental implications from this lack of belief, he must argue for his claims.

The difficulty comes from this, that Christianity (Christian orthodoxy) is exclusive and that belief in its truth excludes belief in any other truth. It does not absorb; it repulses.

I realize anew that, just as we must learn to obey God one choice at a time, we must also learn to trust God one circumstance at a time. Trusting God is not a matter of my feelings but of my will. I never feel like trusting God when adversity strikes, but I can choose to do so even when I don’t feel like it. That act of the will, though, must be based on belief, and belief must be based on truth.

You may believe whatever you want; but the most important thing is to update you belief with the truth, with the science! Your dearest belief might be the biggest buncombe ever! Don't be sad! Continue your road with the new truth! Everything changes!

No longer what your belief about yourself is - if you've always been poor, if you've always been overweight, if you've always had rotten relationships, if your luck hasn't been good, if you don't attract into your life the things you want, if you've always been shy or always been aggressive - whatever it is and however long you've held it, the belief that you can't change it is not aligned with Source. Source says you can be anything. You can do anything. You're infinite.

I have a fundamental belief in the goodness and strength of the American worker. And the American worker is the most productive, the most innovative. America is still the greatest producer, exporter and importer. I have a fundamental belief in the United States of America. And I still believe, under the right leadership, our best days are ahead of us.

To me, the Craft is what Christianity was 2,000 years ago. It was a religion that was not corrupted. I personally think Jesus was a Crafter. We believe in all the things that he spoke of. The early Christians believed in reincarnation, and that was later removed from the belief system. Early Christians had a female Divinity, and that was taken out of their belief system, or as with Catholicism, replaced with Mary. Look at how incredible the growth in devotion of Mary is. It's amazing. The desire for a female Divinity is not just Wiccan. It speaks of a global need.

We would all believe in God if he served our every whim. Belief is not about an easy life or even truth. Belief is something you have regardless.

What held people together was the belief that you're really going to change the world. I think that's the nature of many startups. You believe that what you are doing is going to have a dramatic impact. You might not exactly know how, but you really have a belief. That keeps you going and going through many changes and a lot of uncertainty.

I am not an atheist; I believe in God. But my religion ends there. I have my own personal belief system that is so strong it allows me to do what I do. I dont have to worry about going to Hell because of Slayer, you know? Everyone has a personal belief system and believes in life somehow.

When a belief becomes dominant in American psychological circles one can be sure of one thing: that belief refers to something that no longer exists.

Religion has the same relation to man's heavenly condition that mathematics has to his earthly one: both the one and the other are merely the rules of the game. Belief in God and belief in numbers: local truth and truth of location.

Religion may be defined thus: a belief in, and homage rendered to, existences unseen and causes unknown.

One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

True disciples are those who go beyond simply believing. They act out their belief.

The past history of human belief is a cautionary tale. We have killed thousands of our fellow human beings because we believed they had signed a contract with the devil, and had become witches. We still kill more than a thousand people each year for witchcraft. In my view, there is only one hope for humankind to emerge from what Carl Sagan called "the demon-haunted world" of our past. That hope is science.

it’s as if the universe has a sense of humor, since at a deep level it’s impossible not to lead a spiritual life… the universe is living through you at this moment. with or without belief in god, the chain of events leading from silent awareness to physical reality remains intact.