A nation can assume that the addition of the words "under God" to its pledge of allegiance gives evidence that its citizens actually believe in God whereas all it really proves is that they believe in "believing" in God
Huston SmithRead
Religion teaches us that our lives here on earth are to be used for transformation.
Interpretation
Religion encourages personal growth and change during our earthly existence.
Huston Smith's quote emphasizes the transformative role that religion plays in our lives, suggesting that our time on Earth is meant for continuous growth and evolution. It implies that through spiritual teachings and practices, we can undergo significant personal transformation, which enriches our existence and fulfills a deeper purpose.
In practice
In a discussion about personal development during a workshop on spirituality.
A nation can assume that the addition of the words "under God" to its pledge of allegiance gives evidence that its citizens actually believe in God whereas all it really proves is that they believe in "believing" in God
One reason education undoes belief is its teaching of evolution; Darwin's own drift from orthodoxy to agnosticism was symptomatic. Martin Lings is probably right in saying that more cases of loss of religious faith are to be traced to the theory of evolution ... than to anything else.
So always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues.
The crisis that the world finds itself in as it swings on the hinge of a new millennium is located in something deeper than particular ways of organizing political systems and economies.
...conversation can be as mutually incomprehensible as foreign languages. We need the different and complementary perspectives of the various yogas - and ideally of all religions - not only to reach God but to reach each other.
In the post-individualistic era, science and spirituality will become allies, and human beings will realize a vast potentiality now only dimly felt.
Bells call others, but themselves enter not into the Church.
I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace is an interlude during war.
No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline.
I am as certain as I am standing here, that the secret of much mischief to our own souls, and to the souls of others, lies in the way that we stint, and starve, and scamp our prayers, by hurrying over them.
I though about what death is, what a loss is. A sharp pain that lessens with time, but can never quite heal over. A scar. The idea occurred to me there on the site. Take a knife and cut open the earth, and with time the grass would heal it. As if you cut open the rock and polished it.
Life is a symphony, and the action of every person in this life is the playing of his particular part in the music.
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