Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look around.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
But theological change happens though selective quoting. Every religious person does it: You quote those verses that resonate with your own religious insights and ignore or reinterpret those that undermine your certainties. Selective quoting isn't just legitimate, but essential: Religions evolve through shifts in selective quoting.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Selective quoting allows individuals to shape religious beliefs based on personal insights while evolving the understanding of faith.
This quote highlights how individuals within religious contexts often focus on specific verses that support their beliefs while overlooking or reinterpreting those that contradict them. It suggests that this practice of selective quoting is not only common but also a necessary process for the evolution of religious thought, as it allows for personal interpretation and adaptation of faith over time.
Themes
ReligionBeliefInterpretationEvolutionInsights
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about religious beliefs, this quote can illustrate how individuals perceive their faith.
Similar quotes
If alpha [the fine-structure constant] were bigger than it really is, we should not be able to distinguish matter from ether [the vacuum, nothingness], and our task to disentangle the natural laws would be hopelessly difficult. The fact however that alpha has just its value 1/137 is certainly no chance but itself a law of nature. It is clear that the explanation of this number must be the central problem of natural philosophy.
Max BornRead
But the fact a person denies that he is theorising is no reason for taking him at his word and failing to investigate what implicit theory is involved in his statements.
Talcott ParsonsRead
Violence is man re-creating himself.
Frantz FanonRead
Each one of us is a custodian of India's well-being and of the legacy that we will pass on to coming generations.
Ram Nath KovindRead
Why is geometry often described as cold and dry? One reason lies in its inability to describe the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline or a tree.
Benoit MandelbrotRead