Places That Echo

Places That Echo When Empty

Places That Feel Abandoned

Places That Feel Too Quiet

Come Back In Spring

Create Their Own Communities

Hold Their Place

church

old age

dad joke

exam

Jesus Christ

mouse

prayer

hawk

Christianity

theology

ology (the study of)

hell

leaving

Let's make like a . . . 

golf

Cockney Rhyming Slang

pastor

televangelist

cemetery

graveyard

trivia

farting

one-liner

confucius say

faith

lightning

nonsense question

rest

Sunday

amen

hospital

vaccination

emergency room

antivaxxer

emergency medicine

Native American

nature

mother nature

duck

book club

is, in claiming to be divine, more dangerous on account of the ersatz good which it contains then on account of the evil which sullies it.

A society like the Church, which claims to be Divine is perhaps more dangerous on account of the ersatz good which it contains then on account of the evil which sullies it. Something of the social labelled divine: an intoxicating mixture which carries with it every sort of license. Devil disguised.

is (whether jewish, Christian or turkish) set up by man only to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. Thomas Paine

is a monopoly for power and profit, a human invention that uses fear to enslave us.

[A]ll churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, are simply human inventions. They use fear to enslave us. They are a monopoly for power and profit. Thomas Paine

is a social organism in which mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs.

In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs.

is a symptom of disenchantment : Not a way out from it. The person who cannot bare the fate of the times, the arms of the old churches are opened widely and compassionately for him.

To the person who cannot bear the fate of the times, one must say: may he rather return silently, without the usual publicity build-up of renegades, but simply and plainly. The arms of the old churches are opened widely and compassionately for him. After all, they do not make it hard for him. One way or another he has to bring his 'intellectual sacrifice'-- that is inevitable. If he can really do it, we shall not rebuke him. For such an intellectual sacrifice in favor of an unconditional religious devotion is ethically quite a different matter than the evasion of the plain duty of intellectual honesty, which sets in lacks the courage to clarify one's own ultimate standpoint and rather facilitates this duty by feeble relative judgment. In my eyes, such religious return stands higher than the academic prophecy, which does not clearly realize that in the lecture-rooms of the university no other virtue holds but plain intellectual honesty. (weber 35)

is always trying to get other people to reform, it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example.

The church is always trying to get other people to reform, it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example. Mark Twain

is an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war.

I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war. W. E. B. Du Bois

is either representative of prophetic zeal, or it is an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

church, n.Definitions

church