Andrew Lorien (that's me)
had an idea once about Jesus, Pandora, and Erwin Schrodinger
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The single biggest cause of the problems of the twentieth century is that we have forgotten God.
Art Hoppe
If there is no God, who pops up the next kleenex?
Plato
He was a wise man who invented God.
Pablo Picasso
God is really only another artist, He invented the girraffe, the
elephant, and the cat. He has no real style, he just goes on trying
other things.
Albert Einstein
God can be subtle, but he isn't plain mean.
Anon
God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh.
God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.
God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
Veronica Brady
Talents #30
...this is the importance of art in religion because some
theologians, and some preachers, try to limit God to our
understanding
Umberto Eco 1980
The Name of the Rose
The older I grow and the more I abandon myself to God's will, the
less I value intelligence that wants to know and will that wants to
do; and as the only element of salvation recognise faith, which can
wait patiently, without asking too many questions. [Day five,
vespers]
BE HERE NOW
a book by the Lama Foundation
I HAVE A RELATIVE WHO IS IN A MENTAL HOSPITAL 
HE THINKS HE IS CHRIST WELL THAT'S
GROOVY I
AM CHRIST ALSO BUT HE DOESN'T THINK I AM CHRIST HE THINKS HE IS CHRIST
BECAUSE IT HAPPENED TO HIM AND HE TOOK HIS EGO WITH HIM SO HE SAYS: I'M
SPECIAL
AND WHEN I SAY TO HIM: SURE MAN YOU'RE CHRIST AND I'M CHRIST TOO HE SAYS:
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND AND WHEN HE'S OUT HE STEALS CARS AND THINGS LIKE THAT
BECAUSE HE NEEDS THEM BECAUSE HE'S CHRIST AND THAT'S ALL RIGHT SO THEY LOCK
HIM UP HE
SAYS: I DON'T KNOW...ME...I'M A RESPONSIBLE MEMBER OF SOCIETY I GO TO CHURCH
ME THEY
PUT IN A MENTAL HOSPITAL YOU'RE FREE YOU'VE GOT A BEARD YOU WEAR A DRESS
YOU
SURE
BECAUSE AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED WE ARE ALL GOD THAT'S THE DIFFERENCE IF YOU REALLY
THINK ANOTHER GUY IS GOD HE DOESN'T LOCK YOU UP
FUNNY ABOUT THAT
[P.99. The whole book is
written in letraset, including the little pictures
]
Joseph Heller
Catch-22 1961
"And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways," Yossarian
continued... "There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not
working at all. He's playing. Or else he's forgotten all about us.
That's the kind of God you people talk about -- a country bumpkin, a
clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God,
how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it
necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His
divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that
warped, evil, scatalogical mind of His when He robbed old people of
the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He
ever create pain?"
"Pain?" Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife pounced upon the word
victoriously. "Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us of
bodily dangers."
"And who created the dangers?" Yossarian demanded. He laughed
caustically. "Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave
us pain! Why couldn't He have used a doorbell instead to notify us,
or one of his celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon
tubes right in the middle of each person's forehead. Any jukebox
manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn't
He?"
"People would certainly look silly walking around with red neon tubes
in the middle of their foreheads."
"They certainly look beautiful now writhing in agony or stupified
with morphine, don't they? What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When
you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and
then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He make of it instead, His
sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It's obvious He never met a
payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler
like Him as even a shipping clerk!"
Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife had turned ashen in disbelief and was
ogling him with alarm. "You'd better not talk that way about Him,
honey," she warned him reprovingly in a low and hostile voice. "He
might punish you."
"Isn't He punishing me enough?" Yossarian snorted resentfully. "You
know, we certainly mustn't let Him get away with it. Oh, no, we
certainly mustn't let Him get away scot free for all the sorrow He's
caused us. Someday I'm going to make him pay. I know when. On the
Judgement Day. Yes, that's the day I'll be close enough to reach out
and grab that little yokel by His neck and --"
"Stop it! Stop it!" Leiutenant Scheisskopf's wife screamed suddenly,
and began beating him ineffectually about the head with both fists.
"Stop it!"
Yossarian ducked behind his arm for protection while she slammed away
at him in feminine fury for a few seconds, and then he caught her
determinedly by the wrists and forced her gently back down on the
bed. "What the hell are you getting so upset about?" He asked her
bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. "I thought you didn't
believe in God."
"I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. "But the God I
don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not
the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be."
Yossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. "Let's have a little
more religious freedom between us," he proposed obligingly. "You
don't believe in the God you want to, and I won't believe in the
God I want to. Is that a deal?" [Chapter 18]
David Hume, 1752
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion IX
I shall venture to add on observation that the argument a priori
[for the existence of God] has seldom been found very convincing,
except to people of a metaphysical head who have accustomed
themselves to abstract reasoning, and who, finding from mathematics
that the understanding frequently leads to truth through obscurity,
and contrary to first appearences, have transferred the same habit of
thinking to subjects where it ought not to have place.
Blaise Pascal,
I have heard, devoted his life to theology because, as a
mathematician, he reasoned that if Heaven and Hell are infinite, and
all earthly pleasure and pain, no matter how great, is finite, then
no matter what the odds against the existence of God, it's worth the
gamble.
An anonymous rel. studies student and Dr Dave:
"God being perfect and omnipresent and that, but trapped in our
time is a bit silly - it defeats the idea of having a God, a bit like
putting a little kid in big shoes." "...and you end up with a God of
whom you say, 'well gee, you've given him big boots, but he's only a
little fellow.' "
Dr Dave again, 1992
Dr David Dockrill is a philosophy lecturer at Newcastle
University
Is there more to [religion] than singing hymns and hearing sermons
and drinking cups of coffee after the service?
Rene Descartes
on the ontological argument: 1641
...because we cannot think of God's existence as being possible,
without at the same time ... acknowledging that He can exist by His
own might, we hence conclude that He really exists and has existed
from all eternity; for the light of nature makes it most plain that
what can exist by it's own power always exists.
Tory Amos
me and a gun
me and jesus a few years back used to hang and he said 'it's your
choice babe just remember i don't think you'll be back in 3 days time
so you choose well'
Another
guy's god quotes...
My collection of quotes about the Bible
