I will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has consulted with my heart. If you ever come to a conclusion without calling the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion.
Robert Green IngersollRead
To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that to despise humanity while honoring a higher power is a contradiction inherent in many belief systems.
Robert Green Ingersoll highlights a paradox in religious and philosophical beliefs, indicating that one cannot truly worship God while simultaneously harboring hate for mankind. This statement invites reflection on the values of love, compassion, and acceptance, emphasizing that authentic spirituality should encompass respect and kindness towards humanity, as they are interconnected.
In practice
In a speech about compassion in religion, one might quote this to highlight the importance of loving humanity.
I will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has consulted with my heart. If you ever come to a conclusion without calling the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion.
If the guardians of society, the protectors of 'young persons,' could have had their way, we should have known nothing of Byron or Shelley. The voices that thrill the world would now be silent.
The religion that has to be supported by law is without value, not only, but a fraud and a curse. The religious argument that has to be supported by a musket is hardly worth making.
There is no slavery but ignorance.
In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
I believe that there is something far nobler than loyalty to any particular man. Loyalty to the truth as we perceive it - loyalty to our duty as we know it - loyalty to the ideals of our brain and heart - is, to my mind, far greater and far nobler than loyalty to the life of any particular man or God. . . .
Reason is a faculty far larger than mere objective force. When either the political or the scientific discourse announces itself as the voice of reason, it is playing God, and should be spanked and stood in the corner.
We could cope—the world could cope—with a Jesus who ultimately remains a wonderful idea inside his disciples' minds and hearts. The world cannot cope with a Jesus who comes out of the tomb, who inaugurates God's new creation right in the middle of the old one.
We're such a funky species. We're so violent, so greedy - this is how we roll. But what are we going to do about it? How do we move forward given who we are? Because situations don't come out of nothing. They come out of certain conditions.
Once you open up the Pandora's box of race and gender... you're never done.
But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you-the social reformers-see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.
…not a fighter… an adventurer. He doesn’t attack, he engages; He doesn’t defend, he expands; He doesn’t destroy, he transforms; He doesn’t reject, he explores; ….
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