Quotes & Sayings About Believing In One God

Whatever the "Christian conservatives" in America say, there is no one set of rightful opinions that follow on automatically from your belief. If you have signed up for the redeeming love of God, you don't - you really don't - have to sign up too for low taxes, creationism, gun ownership, the death penalty, closing abortion clinics, climate change denial and grotesque economic inequality. You are entirely at liberty to believe that the kingdom would be better served by social justice, redistributive taxation, feminism, gay rights and excellent public transportation. You won't have the authoritative sanction of the gospel for believing in those things either, of course. But you can. — Francis Spufford

Believing in the resurrection does not just mean assenting to a dogma and noting a historical fact. It means participating in this creative act of God's ... Resurrection is not a consoling opium, soothing us with the promise of a better world in the hereafter. It is the energy for a rebirth of this life. The hope doesn't point to another world. It is focused on the redemption of this one. — Jurgen Moltmann

He had theologically redefined the Christian life as something active, not reactive. It had nothing to do with avoiding sin or with merely talking or teaching or believing theological notions or principles or rules or tenets. It had everything to do with living one's whole life in obedience to God's call through action. It did not merely require a mind, but a body too. It was God's call to be fully human, to live as human beings obedient to the one who had made us, which was the fulfillment of our destiny. It was not a cramped, compromised, circumspect life, but a life lived in a kind of wild, joyful, full-throated freedom - that was what it was to obey God. — Eric Metaxas

If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God — Blaise Pascal

Walter Issacson biographer of Steve Jobs:
I remember sitting in his backyard in his garden, one day, and he started talking about God. He [Jobs] said, " Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don't. I think it's 50/50, maybe. But ever since I've had cancer, I've been thinking about it more, and I find myself believing a bit more, maybe it's because I want to believe in an afterlife, that when you die, it doesn't just all disappear. The wisdom you've accumulated, somehow it lives on."
Then he paused for a second and said, "Yea, but sometimes, I think it's just like an On-Off switch. Click. And you're gone." And then he paused again and said, " And that's why I don't like putting On-Off switches on Apple devices."
Joy to the WORLD! There IS an after-life! — Walter Isaacson

To be really Bible-believing Christians we need to practice, simultaneously, at each step of the way, two biblical principles.
One principle is that of the purity of the visible church. Scripture commands that we must do more than just talk about the purity of the visible church; we must actually practice it, even when it is costly.
The second principle is that of an observable love among all true Christians. In the flesh we can stress purity without love, or we can stess love without purity; we cannot stress both simultaneously. To do so we must look moment by moment to the work of Christ and to the Holy Spirit. Without that, a stress on purity becomes hard, proud, and legalistic; likewise without it a stress on love becomes sheer compromise.
Spiritually begins to have real meaning in our lives as we begin to exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God. We never do this perfectly, but we must look to the living Christ to help us do it truly. — Francis A. Schaeffer

The only difference between holding one god as exclusive or supreme and believing in many gods specialized in function is the number. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

JOHN 3:16-18 [Jesus said,] This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. — Eugene H. Peterson

One is in a state of hope because the basic physiological feeling is once again strong and rich; one trusts in God because the feeling of fullness and strength gives a sense of rest. Morality and religion belong entirely to the psychology of error: in every single case, cause and effect are confused; or truth is confused with the effects of believing something to be true; or a state of consciousness is confused with its physiological origins. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Believers are supposed to hold that the pope is the vicar of Christ on earth, and the keeper of the keys of Saint Peter. They are of course free to believe this, and to believe that god decides when to end the tenure of one pope or (more important) to inaugurate the tenure of another. This would involve believing in the death of an anti-Nazi pope, and the accession of a pro-Nazi one, as a matter of divine will, a few months before Hitler's invasion of Poland and the opening of the Second World War. Studying that war, one can perhaps accept that 25 percent of the SS were practicing Catholics and that no Catholic was ever even threatened with excommunication for participating in war crimes. (Joseph Goebbels was excommunicated, but that was earlier on, and he had after all brought it on himself for the offense of marrying a Protestant.) Human beings and institutions are imperfect, to be sure. But there could be no clearer or more vivid proof that holy institutions are man-made. — Christopher Hitchens

It is the desire for irreverence as much as anything else that brought me first to poetry. The need to make fun of authority, break taboos, celebrate the body and its functions, claim that one has seen angels in the same breath as one says that there is no god. — Charles Simic

The most purely free decision one can make - and thus, the highest order of spirit on Earth - is believing in something without evidential knowledge. — J.S.B. Morse

There's no way out," he announced with satisfaction, "and no amount of wishful dreaming will produce one. The demon won't go back in its bottle, the face-off is for ever, the embrace gets tighter and the toys cleverer with every generation, and there's no such thing for either side as enough security. Not for the main players, not for the nasty little newcomers who each year run themselves up a suitcase bomb and join the club. We get tired of believing that, because we're human. We may even con ourselves into believing the threat has gone away. It never will. Never, never, never."
"So, who'll save us then, Walt?" Barley asked. "You and Nedsky?"
"Vanity, if anything will, which I doubt," Walter retorted. "No leader wants to go down in history as the ass who destroyed his country in an afternoon. And funk, I suppose. Most of our gallant politicians do have a narcissistic objection to suicide, thank God. — John Le Carre

In order to avoid believing in just one God we are now asked to believe in an infinite number of universes, all of them unobservable just because they are not part of ours. The principle of inference seems to be not Occam's Razor but Occam's Beard: Multiply entities unnecessarily. — J. Budziszewski

He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. — Anonymous

One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything. — Malcolm Muggeridge

Believing in God because doing so satisfies one's needs is different from believing that there is a God solely because of evidence. — Clifford Williams

If god does not exist, one loses nothing by believing in him anyway, while if he does exist, one stands to lose everything by not believing. — Blaise Pascal

I want to make people think, and I don't want to come across like I am egotistical or that I want to change people's thoughts. I don't believe that as a comic I can convert anyone's opinion. I think I can maybe make someone look in one direction or the other but I can't make a religious person stop believing in God. — Jim Jefferies

How do you know when you love somebody?"
I felt something inside of me shrink when the words left his mouth. It sounded like a rejection.
"You don't have to ask yourself. You just know it. It' like a religion'; it's like believing in a god. You can't explain it. No one can tell yo yo're wrong. It just is. — Katie Kacvinsky

No circumstance in the world can ever prevent us from believing in God, from placing all our trust in him, from loving him with our whole heart, or from loving our neighbor. Faith, hope, and charity are absolutely free, because if they are rooted in us deeply enough, they are able to draw strength from whatever opposes them! If someone sought to prevent us from believing by persecuting us, we always would retain the option of forgiving our enemies and transforming the situation of oppression into one of greater love. If someone tried to silence our faith by killing us, our deaths would be the best possible proclamation of our faith! Love, and only love, can overcome evil by good and draw good out of evil. — Jacques Philippe

Ultimately, of course, you must decide for yourself whether the subjective psychological effects created by your evolved cognitive biases reflect an objective reality, perhaps as evidence that God designed your mind to be so receptive to Him. Or, just maybe, you will come to acknowledge that, like the rest of us, you are a hopeless pawn in one of natural selection's most successful hoaxes ever-and smile at the sheer ingenuity involved in pulling it off, at the very thought of such mindless cleverness. One can still enjoy the illusion of God, after all, without believing Him to be real. — Jesse Bering

You see, Katie," Pastor Ron said, "that's what makes faith so tough to grasp, but also makes it so wonderful. It's all about believing in something - whether it's God, or other people, or even yourself - when you've got nothing else to go on. Nothing but a little voice inside telling you it's more than a hunch. — Kaylin McFarren

I don't have a problem believing in God and Jesus. But in Genesis one has to wonder about these sentences that just go on and end without finishing. The thought is unfinished. Where did Adam go? What is he doing? Hello? There has to be some pages missing. — Bill Cosby

I believe in God. Maybe not the Catholic God or even the Christian one because I have a hard time seeing any God as elitist. I also have a hard time believing that anything that created rain forests and oceans and an infinite universe would, in the same process, create something as unnatural as humanity in its own image. I believe in God, but not as a he or she or an it, but as something that defines my ability to conceptualize within the rather paltry frames of reference I have on hand. — Dennis Lehane

The memory of the revolutionary zealot who walked across Galilee gathering an army of disciples with the goal of establishing the Kingdom of God on earth, the magnetic preacher who defied the authority of the Temple priesthood in Jerusalem, the radical Jewish nationalist who challenged the Roman occupation and lost, has been almost completely lost to history. That is a shame. Because the one thing any comprehensive study of the historical Jesus should hopefully reveal is that Jesus of Nazareth - Jesus the man - is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as Jesus the Christ. He is, in short, someone worth believing in. — Reza Aslan

Fear is actually faith in the wrong god. Fear is the manifestation of believing that something is about to go wrong. And yet, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love" (1 John 4:18). — Kris Vallotton

Though they love people, the Christians are enemies of our life, our gods and our crimes; hence she fled from me, as from a man who belongs to our [Roman] society, and with whom she would have to share a life counted criminal by Christians ... I should not have stopped her from believing in her Christ, and would myself have reared an altar to Him in the atrium. What harm could one more god do me? Why might I not believe in Him, - I who do not believe over much in the old gods? ... It would not be difficult for me even to renounce other gods, for no reasoning mind believes in them at present. But it seems that all this is not enough yet for the Christians. It is not enough to honor Christ, one must also live according to His teachings; and here thou art on the shore of a sea which they command thee to wade through.
Quo Vadis — Henryk Stanczyk

There are no men more careful of the use of means than those that are surest of a good issue and conclusion, for the one stirs up diligence in the other. Assurance of the end stirs up diligence in the means. For the soul of a believing Christian knows that God has decreed both. — Richard Sibbes

18 Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping - believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, "That's how many descendants you will have!"* 19 And Abraham's faith did not weaken, even though, at about 100 years of age, he figured his body was as good as dead - and so was Sarah's womb. 20 Abraham never wavered in believing God's promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. 21 He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. 22 And because of Abraham's faith, God counted him as righteous. 23 And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn't just for Abraham's benefit. It was recorded 24 for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. — Anonymous

Perps didn't always get their just deserts in this life. That was one of the reasons she kept believing in God, the hope that he would kick ass in the afterlife. — Tami Hoag

A Pleasant Theology One reason why many people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen? - from Mere Christianity — C.S. Lewis

A lot of churchgoers in America think that merely believing God exists is enough to be saved, but the Bible says, "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble" (James 2:19). In other words, it's no great accomplishment to believe in God - even the devil knows that God is real. You have to do more than mentally acknowledge God's existence; you have to submit yourself to Him. — Andrew Wommack

Someone has said that no theology is worth believing that cannot be preached standing in front of the gates of Auschwitz. I, for one, could not stand at those gates and preach a version of God's sovereignty that makes the extermination of six million Jews, including many children, a part of the will and plan of God such that God foreordained and rendered it certain.18 I want young Calvinists (and others) to know and at least come to terms with the inevitable and unavoidable consequences of what this radical form of Reformed theology teaches. And I want to give their friends and relatives and Spiritual mentors ammunition to use in undermining their sometimes overconfidence in the solidity of their belief system. — Roger E. Olson

It is the thing of myth and legend and the greatest epic stories ever written. But it's not myth or legend or story, and that's why it's not even really a world religion. Christianity is just the way it is.

Whether you like it or not, one man has united the tribes, overthrown the tyrant, and established Himself as the master of the universe. Sufficient proofs have been left in the historical records to convince any critic who isn't too bigoted to read the evidence on its own merits.

Not believing it doesn't change it, and scoffing at it only proves you to be a fool. It's the most potent Word ever spoken because this Word hasn't been spoken by man alone, but by the very mouth of the Creator God. — Jonathan Fisk

There is something about nature out of control that touches a primal terror. We are used to believing that we're the masters of our domain, and that God has given us this earth to rule over. We need this illusion like a good night-light. The truth is more fearsome: we are as frail as young trees in tornadoes, and our beloved homes are one flood away from driftwood. We plant our roots in trembling earth, we live where mountains rose and fell and prehistoric seas burned away in mist. We and the towns we have built are not permanent; the earth itself is a passing train. When you stand in muddy water that is rising toward your waist and you hear people shouting against the darkness and see their figures struggling to hold back the currents that will not be denied, you realize the truth of it: we will not win, but we cannot give up. — Robert McCammon

Seeing is believing, or so the old saying goes. One of the strongest encouragements for trusting God today is seeing God's power in the past. — Anonymous

While believing strongly, without evidence, is considered a mark of madness or stupidity in any other area of our lives, faith in God still holds immense prestige in our society. Religion is the one area of our discourse where it is considered noble to pretend to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about. It is telling that this aura of nobility extends only to those faiths that still have many subscribers. Anyone caught worshipping Poseidon, even at sea, will be thought insane. — Sam Harris

In the Middle East, Iraq , Sudan , the former Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland, and many other places in the world , religion has been so divisive that people have killed one another, believing they were doing the work of God . — John C. Danforth

Who does his task from day to day and meets whatever comes his way, Believing God has willed it so, has found real greatness here below. Who guards his post, no matter where, believing God must need him there, Although but lowly toil it be, has risen to nobility. For great and low there's just one test, 'tis that each man shall do his best, Who works with all the strength he can, shall never die in debt to man. — Edgar Guest

People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept, but still a religion, it doesn't matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn't the fear of God but the upholding of one's own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the while day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that: A quiet conscience mades one strong! — Anne Frank

God cautions us in Isaiah 55:9 that his ways are not ours and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts (undoubtedly one of the grander understatements).
God is warning us that he is not logical and that believing him to be logical will lead to all kinds of disappointment.
Logic has been defined as 'the science or history of the human mind, as it traces the progress of our knowledge from our first conceptions through their different combinations, and the numerous deductions that result from comparing them with one another.'
Doesn't sound much like God. Yet, we so often strain our relatively minuscule brains to conceive, combine, compare, and deduce. Then we fault God when his conclusions disagree.
The repetition of this useless exercise leads to a form of insanity which ultimately manifests in denial of the existence of such an illogical God. — Ron Brackin

... questioning the existence of God may begin because of one's sense of disappointment rather than because of a line of reasoning. Disappointment can bring disillusionment, and disillusionment can get quite a grip on us. It may be the case that, next to the grip of disillusionment, whatever reasons we can think of to believe that God exists or that God is good will appear weak. So sometimes the reason we do not believe or the reason we stop believing is not the intellectual challenge to believing in God. Sometimes, the grip of disillusionment cannot be matched by things that seem to be only abstract or theoretical. — Gregory E. Ganssle

During all these years I have been enabled to trust in the living God alone. In answer to prayer $7,500,000 have been sent to me. We have needed as much as $200,000 in one year, and it has all come when needed. No man can ever say I asked him for a penny. We have no committees, no collectors, no voting, and no endowment. All has come in answer to believing prayer. — Charles R. Parsons

Nanak wanted to preach people that God loves both the Hindus and the Muslims the same way. Believing in his spiritual encounter, he wanted to eliminate the distance between the Hindus and the Muslims by teaching the words of equality and One God. But just like usual, he ended up forming yet another religion which became more and more hardcore with its own rituals and regulations in the hands of the subsequent nine Gurus. — Abhijit Naskar

Believing isn't the hard part; waiting on God is. So I stuck with it and prayed impatiently for patience, and to stop feeling disgusted by myself, and to believe for a few moments that God, just a bit busy with other suffering in the world, actually cared about one menopausal white woman on a binge. — Anne Lamott

Neither one of us could really articulate how we felt until I heard Lamott referencing Paul Tillich and telling the audience, "The opposite of faith is not doubt - it's certainty." Steve and I didn't leave religion because we stopped believing in God. Religion left us when it started putting politics and certainty before love and mystery. — Brene Brown

Shepherd Book: What are we up to, sweetheart?
River: Fixing your Bible.
Book: I, um ... What?
River: Bible's broken. Contradictions, false logistics - doesn't make sense.
Shepherd Book: No, no. You-you-you can't ...
River: So we'll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God's creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah's ark is a problem.
Shepherd Book: Really?
River: We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5000 species of mammal on the same boat.
Shepherd Book: River, you don't fix the Bible.
River: It's broken. It doesn't make sense.
Book: It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something, and letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about faith. You don't fix faith, River. It fixes you. — Ben Edlund

For just as the first general precepts of the law of nature are self-evident to one in possession of natural reason, and have no need of promulgation, so also that of believing in God is primary and self-evident to one who has faith: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is. — Thomas Aquinas

One positive result of past failure is that you surrender the pursuit of perfection and, if you've gained any sense along the way, you replace it with the pursuit of God's redemption. Nothing is more redemptive than faith in God. You learn that failure may be painful, but it's rarely fatal. After coming to grips with the high premium God places on our faith, I refuse to give up a life practice of believing God just because I accidentally swerve off the road a few times in my faith journey. Hebrews 11:6 says faith is what pleases God, not perfection. — Beth Moore

Atheism is a conclusion reached by the most reasonable methods and one which is not asserted dogmatically but is explained in its every feature by the light of reason. The atheist does not boast of knowing in a vainglorious, empty sense. He understands by knowledge the most reasonable and clear and sound position one can take on the basis of all the evidence at hand. This evidence convinces him that theism is not true, and his logical position, then, is that of atheism.
We repeat that the atheist is one who denies the assumptions of theism. he asserts, in other words, that he doesn't believe in a God because he has no good reason for believing in a God. That's atheism
and that's good sense. — E. Haldeman-Julius

Confession is a difficult Discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We cannot bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. Therefore, we hide ourselves from one another and live in veiled lies and hypocrisy.
But if we know that the people of God are first a fellowship of sinners, we are freed to hear the unconditional call of God's love and to confess our needs openly before our brothers and sisters. We know we are not alone in our sin. The fear and pride that cling to us like barnacles cling to others also. We are sinners together. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied, but transformed. — Richard J. Foster

Do you believe in God?" Her small hand grips onto my larger one. "Yeah, baby girl," I say, looking down and watching her smile at my answer. "Do you think God will let me see you again?" She continues to ask questions that keep breaking me. "I know he will," I say, believing it more than anything. My faith has now been shaken, but I can't lose hope that where she is going will be somewhere beautiful and amazing. "When I go to God, will I see Charlie the goldfish?" She yawns, almost drifting off as the hospital machines beep around us. I nearly smile at her question, but I can't, because at the end of the day we're talking about death, and the inevitable end that's fast approaching. "I don't know, baby girl," I tell her, wishing I had the right answers for her. — River Savage

Every year, I might almost say every day, that I live, I seem to see more clearly how all the rest and gladness and power of our Christian life hinges on one thing; and that is, taking God at His word, believing that He really means exactly what He says, and accepting the very words in which He reveals His goodness and grace, without substituting others or altering the precise modes and tenses which He has seen fit to use. — Frances Ridley Havergal

Only the most reckless, self-indulgent of men would deny Aquinas's conclusion, God. Albeit a concealed one, the presence of an overmind is self-evident and necessary, yet in the same breath, only the most negligent and asinine would terminate the enquiry at such a premature rung, believing as the theologian William Paley believed that the earthly design is inherently beneficial. — John Zande

The point of Christian scholarship is not recognition by standards established in the wider culture. The point is to praise God with the mind. Such efforts will lead to the kind of intellectual integrity that sometimes receives recognition. But for the Christian that recognition is only a fairly inconsequential by-product. The real point is valuing what God has made, believing that the creation is as "good" as he said it was, and exploring the fullest dimensions of what it meant for the Son of God to "become flesh and dwell among us." Ultimately, intellectual work of this sort is its own reward, because it is focused on the only One whose recognition is important, the One before whom all hearts are open. — Mark A. Noll

It had to do with the knowledge that the world was as it was because of what men believed it was ... year by year, these past three or four generations, the minds of men had been hardened to believing that there was one God, one world, one way of describing reality, and that all things which intruded on the realm of that great one-ness must be evil and of the fiends, and that the sound of the bells and the shadow of their holy places would keep the evil afar. And as more and more people believed this, it was so, and Avalon no more than a dream adrift in an almost inaccessible other world — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Fascinating to watch the reactions of people suddenly seized by fear. Some can't take it. They let themselves go to a point of hysteria, then in panic flee to - God knows where. Most take it, with various degrees of courage and coolness. In the lobby tonight: the newspapermen milling around trying to get telephone calls through the one lone operator. Jews excitedly trying to book on the last plane or train. The wildest rumours coming in with every new person that steps through the revolving door from outside, all of us gathering around to listen, believing or disbelieving according to our feelings. — William L. Shirer

In order for life to have appeared spontaneously on Earth, there first had to be hundreds of millions of protein molecules of the Ninth Configuration. But, given the size of the planet Earth, do you know how long it would take for just one of these protein molecules to appear by chance? Roughly 10 to the 243rd power, billions of years; and I find that far, far more fantastic than simply believing in a god. — William Peter Blatty

It made no sense that Abraham could head for the mountain in Moriah still believing in God's goodness. It made no sense that even as he walked his son to the sacrificial altar, he still believed God's promise that Isaac would give him many descendants. It made no sense that he was willing to do the one thing in the world he could not do, just because God told him to. God told him to obey and to believe that he as a loving god and could be trusted. So Abraham did obey. — Anne Lamott

The Holy One. I have never stopped believing in him. I don't understand the idea that God wants to be worshipped one way alone, and when I feel overwhelmed by the immensity and beauty of his creation, I am glad my mother taught me to bless and praise him everywhere. My — Laurel Corona

Pascal," said Dr. Meescham, "had it that since it could not be proven whether God existed, one might as well believe that he did, because there was everything to gain by believing and nothing to lose. This is how it is for me. What do I lose if I choose to believe? Nothing!"
"Take this squirrel, for instance. Ulysses. Do I believe he can type poetry? Sure, I do believe it. There is much more beauty in the world if I believe such a thing is possible. — Kate DiCamillo

But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticize the government. Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God. That fact is written all across human history; but it is written most plainly across the recent history of Russia; which was created by Lenin. There the government is the God, and all the more the God, because it proclaims aloud in accents of thunder ... one essential commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods but Me. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Feelings come and feelings go,
And feelings are deceiving;
My warrant is the Word of God
Naught else is worth believing.
Though all my heart should feel condemned
For want of some sweet token,
There is One greater than my heart
Whose Word cannot be broken.
I'll trust in God's unchanging Word
Till soul and body sever,
For, though all things shall pass away,
HIS WORD SHALL STAND FOREVER! — Martin Luther

One entry was entitled: "About God":
"This thought has been ascribed to Voltaire: If God did not exist, mankind would have invented Him. I find more truth in the reverse: If there really is a God, then we should seek to forget Him, to raise up men who will to do good for goodness' sake, not out of fear of punishment for their bad deeds. How can someone give alms to a poor man with a clean heart when he believes, and has an interest in believing, that there is a God who keeps score in heaven, who looks down and nods in approval? — Henrik Pontoppidan

But you'd get arguments from all kinds of people that the Bible has got to be perfect. That God would not permit such errors to be made in the Holy Word."
"I thought God gave everyone free will. Which would presumably - and evidently - include the freedom to be incorrect when translating one language into another."
"Stop making me think. I'm believing over here. — Jim Butcher

And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another. — Joseph Smith Jr.

One can believe God capable of anything without believing that he did everything anybody may say he did. One can believe in the possibility of miracles without believing that every reported miracle must in fact have happened. — Robert M. Price

There are many gods which Christians reject. I just believe in one less god then they do. The reasons that you might give for your atheism toward the Roman gods are likely the same reasons I would give for not believing in Jesus. — Dan Barker

When it comes to believing in the important things in life (like love, hope, justice, peace) we have a hard time proving they are real things. We cannot put love in a beaker over a Bunsen burner and watch it prove its existence to us. We believe in love because we have faith that it is there. Our faith in love is not blind faith. Though we cannot prove love is real, we have reasons for believing that it is. It's the same with God. No one can prove God's existence, but we can have faith in the evidence that we do have." (Life Hacks, p.18) — Jon Morrison

Oh! happy day, happy day, thrice happy day, when a man comes into this blessed state! I have heard many regret that they have pursued the pleasures of sense and been fascinated with them; but I never yet heard of one who had found the dear delights of faith pall on his taste. It has never fallen to my lot yet to attend a dying bed where I have heard a Christian regret that he put his trust in his Savior; neither have I ever heard at any time of anyone who died believing in Jesus who has had to say, Had I but served the world with half the zeal I served my God I should have been a happier man. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

There is no one, and surely no entire people, in whom the image of God has been utterly extinguished. Faith in God means believing that anyone can be transformed, regardless of the past. To write off whole groups of people as intrinsically racist and violent is to accept the very same premise that upholds racist and oppressive regimes. — Walter Wink

Late one night, during a toss-and-turn fretful sleep, I pondered my crisis. No solutions were on the horizon. I, again, wasted my psychic energy with prayer. Nothing. No angel on a white cloud. No rainbow's pot of gold. No way to control the people I loved. As I rolled over and put the pillow over my head attempting to block all that was negative, I silently screamed for rescue. Then, in a far away and distinct part of my brain, a small voice said, "You have to do this on your own."

I thought, "Was that the best You can do?" This god, to whom I was desperately sending burnt offerings of my own humiliation, couldn't send an avenging angel or a wise man imparting wisdom? All You can give me is this feeble message of abandonment? At that moment, I quit believing in that god. — David W. Earle

If I go out of public life with one feeling, with one conviction, it is this : a deep regret for many bitter words I have used in my life, deep sincere repentance for my violence of language. But I hope they will be forgiven me by God and man, because not once in all my life have I attacked anybody unjustly from my point of view, and without believing it was my duty to do so. — Henri Bourassa

In such cases, each hemisphere might well have its own beliefs. Consider what this says about the dogma - widely held under Christianity and Islam - that a person's salvation depends upon her believing the right doctrine about God. If a split-brain patient's left hemisphere accepts the divinity of Jesus, but the right doesn't, are we to imagine that she now harbors two immortal souls, one destined for the company of angels and the other for an eternity in hellfire? — Sam Harris

Chess and you taking a picture of me reading Slaughterhouse-Five, telling me I'd need proof someday because nobody in Creek View would ever believe I had actually read a goddamn book, let alone five. Talking about God and why there's evil in the world and bitching because the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Camp Leatherneck, me not missing home at all and you missing it like crazy, always talking about going to college and how when you had leave you were gonna marry Hannah. And you wanted kids, and I said I didn't because people like me, we just end up disappointing one another and I'd probably be like my dad, and you told me I had to get over it, get over my dad and my mom and how screwed up everything is because you said, Josh, you're gonna have it all. I know it. You're gonna have it all. And for the first time, I'm almost believing that. — Heather Demetrios

From now on, I pray like I mean it. No more hitting SEND over and over. It's changed my life. It has freed me from fear and opened up endless avenues for me as a writer, radio host, parent, wife, and friend. It has enhanced every relationship I'm in, starting with the most important one: my relationship with God. Real faith isn't praying without ceasing. It's believing that God heard you the first time. — Regina Brett

I'd rather live my life believing in God to die and see there is one. Because if there isn't one, it means there's no eternal life, therefore I will never know. — Sandra Chami Kassis

Do you believe in God? Perhaps you aren't old enough. The reason old people believe in God is because they've given up believing in anything else, and one can't exist without faith in something ... God is a sort of burglar. As a young man you knock him down; as an old man, you try to conciliate him because he may knock you down. Moral: don't grow old. — Hesketh Pearson

My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms. — Antony Flew

Just consider, my friend, whether a pure spirit and virtue are anything other than saving your life and being saved. Perhaps we need to discard the idea of longevity and cease loving this life, instead committing these things to God and, believing that no one ever escapes destiny, to consider, with that in mind, how we may live the best possible life in the time that remains. — Marcus Aurelius

All those bickering worshippers, each one convinced their version is the right one. Imagine getting prayers from ten million believers, not one of them believing the same thing as the one kneeling beside him or her. Imagine all those Holy Books, not one of them agreeing on anything, yet all of them purporting to be the word of that one god. Imagine two armies annihilating each other, both in that god's name. Who wouldn't be driven mad by that? — Steven Erikson

In contrast, the a/theistic approach can be seen as a form of disbelieving what one believes, or rather, believing in God while remaining dubious concerning what one believes about God (a distinction that fundamentalism is unable to maintain). — Peter Rollins

I think one of the biggest reasons people have difficulty believing in God is because they don't understand Him. You often hear doubting comments like, 'If there is a God then why this and why that and how could He allow ... ?' Perhaps if people were to invest true, sincere effort getting to know Him they'd discover a mindful Father molding his children for a higher purpose. Because, like it or not, believe it or not, agree with Him or not, He is God. — Richelle E. Goodrich

There is but one freedom, To put oneself right with death. After that everything is possible. I cannot force you to believe in God. Believing in God amounts to coming to terms with death. When you have accepted death, the problem of God will be solved, and not the reverse. — Albert Camus

Losing your faith in a world where God is all around you is a precarious business. When God shows his face on a daily basis to your friends and neighbors, it is, on some level, impossible to stop believing in Him. Instead i felt that God chose to exclude me from His world. Since i was the only one to lose faith, to stop hearing Christ's voice, i thought perhaps it was my fault that Roy had left us. I thought i was being punished for some unknown sin. I had learned early in my Catholic career that one could sin silently in one's heart. One could even sin without ever discovering what one had done or why it was wrong. What had i done, i asked myself, to make God disappear and take Roy with Him. — Alison Smith

If you were an atheist, Birbal," the Emperor challenged his first minister, "what would you say to the true believers of all the great religions of the world?" Birbal was a devout Brahmin from Trivikrampur, but he answered unhesitatingly, "I would say to them that in my opinion they were all atheists as well; I merely believe in one god less than each of them." "How so?" the Emperor asked. "All true believers have good reasons for disbelieving in every god except their own," said Birbal. "And so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none."
From "The Shelter of the World — Salman Rushdie

Men dream that heroes are only to be made on special occasions, once or twice in a century; but in truth the finest heroes are home-spun, and are more often hidden in obscurity than platformed by public observation. Trust in the living God is the bullion out of which heroism is coined. Perseverance in well-doing is one of the fields in which faith grows not flowers, but the wheat of her harvest. Plodding on in hard work, bringing up a family on a few shillings a week, bearing constant pain with patience, and so forth - these are the feats of valour through which God is glorified by the rank and file of His believing people. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon