Difference In Religion Quotes & Sayings

Holiness must have a philosophical and theological foundation, namely, Divine truth; otherwise it is sentimentality and emotionalism. Many would say later on, 'We want religion, but no creeds.' This is like saying we want healing, but no science of medicine; music, but no rules of music; history, but no documents. Religion is indeed a life, but it grows out of truth, not away from it. It has been said it makes no difference what you believe, it all depends on how you act. This is psychological nonsense, for a man acts out of his beliefs. Our Lord placed truth or belief in Him first; then came sanctification and good deeds. But here truth was not a vague ideal, but a Person. Truth was now lovable, because only a Person is lovable. Sanctity becomes the response the heart makes to Divine truth and its unlimited mercy to humanity. — Fulton J. Sheen

I fully recognize there is an urgent need for constructing the _strategic we-nes-in-sameness_ and promoting the _solidarity of sameness_. The sheer realization of the inextricable interconnectedness of I-ness/me-ness and we-ness/us-ness is the round for an authentic solidarity with one another in spite of and regardless of the difference. — Namsoon Kang

The two ethnic groups that remain fundamentally different from the Han Chinese - in terms of history, culture, language, religion and physical appearance - are the Uighurs and Tibetans. In these two groups, the Han Chinese come face to face with difference. — Martin Jacques

The thing we should all be looking for are people who want to make a difference. I'm a big believer in the Silicon Valley religion of the power of markets. But I also believe in our obligation to give back, and to give back in the way we do business, to create more value than we capture for ourselves. — Tim O'Reilly

Hit don't make no difference what a man perfesses. I been in a heap o' churches. There's the Nazarene Church and the Pentecost and the Holy Rollers and the Baptists and I don't know what-all. I cain't see much difference to nary one of 'em. There's a good to all of 'em and there's a bad. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The difference between an atheist and a person of faith? One additional religion in the crazy column. You believe that all religions except yours are crazy. I believe that all religions including yours are crazy. — Quentin R. Bufogle

Let me see if I understand correctly now," the Jinni said at one point. "You and your relations believe that a ghost living in the sky can grant you wishes." "That is a gross oversimplification, and you know it." "And yet, according to men, we jinn are nothing but children's tales?" "This is different. This is about religion and faith." "And where exactly is the difference?" "Are you honestly asking, or being deliberately insulting?" "I'm honestly asking. — Helene Wecker

The difference between Carter and [Ted] Kennedy: Carter has this vague religion which he believes in strongly, while Kennedy has this strong religion which he believes in vaguely. — Eugene McCarthy

It is because the critics are not detached that they do not see this detachment; it is because they are not looking at things in a dry light that they cannot see the difference between black and white. It is because they are in a particular mood of reaction and revolt that they have a motive for making out that all the white is dirty grey and the black not so black as it is painted. I do not say there are not human excuses for their revolt; I do not say it is not in some ways sympathetic; what I say is that it is not in any way scientific. An iconoclast may be indignant; an iconoclast may be justly indignant; but an iconoclast is not impartial. And it is stark hypocrisy to pretend that nine-tenths of the higher critics and scientific evolutionists and professors of comparative religion are in the least impartial. Why should they be impartial, what is being impartial, when the whole world is at war about whether one thing is a devouring superstition or a divine hope? — G.K. Chesterton

Another possibility is that competition for resources flared up into violence and genocide. Tolerance is not a Sapiens trademark. In modern times, a small difference in skin colour, dialect or religion has been enough to prompt one group of Sapiens to set about exterminating another group. Would — Yuval Noah Harari

I really tried, or so I thought, to avoid lying, but it seemed to me that they forced it on me by the difference in their vision of things, so that I was always transposing reality for them into something they could understand. — Mary McCarthy

For an instant he was able to cross the line and understand this strange loyalty of Jew to Jew. Those Jews who lived free in England were only there due to some quirk of fate instead of Aushwitz and every Jew knew that genocide could have happened to his own family except for that quirk of fate.
Yet, as time stood suspended, Gilray was all gentiles who never quite understood Jews. He could befriend them, work with them, but never totally understand them. He was all white men who could never quite understand black men and all black men who could never quite understand whites. He was all normal men who could tolerate or even defend homosexuals ... but never fully understand them.
There is in us all that line that prevents us from fully understanding those who are different. — Leon Uris

Limited government is not a means to liberty, it is an end. That is to say, there are always going to be a group of citizens who cannot meet their basic needs, and there most assuredly will always be politicians willing to promise that they will meet them. The difference between liberty and tyranny by popular support, or correctly termed "democratic despotism, " is little more than the vehicle a free society chooses to use in order to meet those needs. — Richard D. Baris

Women are not angels. They are as foolish as men in many ways; but they have had to devote themselves to life whilst men have had to devote themselves to death; and that makes a vital difference in male and female religion. Women have been forced to fear whilst men have been forced to dare: the heroism of a woman is to nurse and protect life, and of a man to destroy it and court death. — George Bernard Shaw

The fallacy of the socialists37 lies in supposing that because in the present stage of European society property as a source of power is predominant, the same is true of India, or the same was true of Europe in the past. Religion, social status, and property are all sources of power and authority which one man has to control the liberty of another. One is predominant at one stage; the other is predominant at another stage. That is the only difference. If liberty is the ideal, and if liberty means the destruction of the dominion which one man holds over another, then obviously it cannot be insisted upon that economic reform must be the one kind of reform worthy of pursuit. If the source of power and dominion is, at any given time or in any given society, social and religious, then social reform and religious reform must be accepted as the necessary sort of reform. — B.R. Ambedkar

The tension between religion and science is an old problem. In the fourth century, Christians and scientists were deadlocked over the matter of the earth's shape. Saint Augustine, a wise man who knew the difference between the outer life and the inner life, wrote: 'What concern is it of mine whether heaven is like a sphere and the earth is enclosed by it and suspended in the middle of the universe, or whether heaven like a disk above the earth covers it over on one side? These facts would be of no avail for my salvation.' Augustine attached little importance to science and left it alone. If a reading of the Bible conflicted with a scientific view that was certain truth, he humbly admitted that he had interpreted the Bible erroneously. He could afford to be humble, for in his inmost convictions he looked upon science the way a master looks upon his pet, as a creature with intelligence but lacking in higher understanding, and something irrelevant to the search for meaning in life. — Ronald W. Dworkin

Mr. Langdon, I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believed in God. There is a difference. Holy scripture is stories ... legends and history of man's quest to understand his own need for meaning. I am not asking you to pass judgment on literature. I am asking if you believe in God. When you lie out under the stars, do you sense the divine? Do you feel in your gut that you are staring up at the work of God's hands? — Dan Brown

In American religion, as in ancient Gnosticism, there is almost no sense of God's difference from us - in other words, his majesty, sovereignty, self-existence, and holiness. God is my buddy, my inmost experience, or the power source for my living my best life now. — Michael S. Horton

In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not keep the world from what it wants. — Booker T. Washington

Moments like this occurred more and more frequently, and I think that was the biggest difference between us. That we could look at the same stars in the same sky, but not have the same questions. Not want the same answers. — Stephanie Oakes

Either god exists or it doesn't exist. If a god does exist, it either interacts with the universe in some detectable way or it doesn't. If it doesn't, that god is indistinguishable from a non-existent god. That only leaves a god who interacts with the universe in some detectable way. But if science, which is the greatest realization of the use of our senses to, you know, detect things, hasn't found this god, that doesn't say much for individuals.
In short, the god you've created is, in fact, undetectable by science. The limits of science are not the province of religious knowledge. Where science is ignorant, so is religion. The only difference is that religion lacks the integrity of science. — Matt Dillahunty

I was sorry to see the gloomy picture which you drew of the affairs of your Country in your letter of December; but I hope events have not turned out so badly as you then apprehended. Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes, that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far, that we should never again see their religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of Society.
[Letter to Edward Newenham, 20 October 1792 about violence between Catholics and Protestants] — George Washington

Many ask what difference does it make whether man believes in a God or not.
It makes a big difference.
It makes all the difference in the world.
It is the difference between being right and being wrong; it is the difference between truth and surmises - facts or delusion.
It is the difference between the earth being flat, and the earth being round.
It is the difference between the earth being the center of the universe, or a tiny speck in this vast and uncharted sea of multitudinous suns and galaxies.
It is the difference in the proper concept of life, or conclusions based upon illusion.
It is the difference between verified knowledge and the faith of religion.
It is a question of Progress or the Dark Ages. — Joseph Lewis

At a theoretical level, I think a naturalist approach to religion is just asking questions I'm not interested in. They're perfectly legitimate in their own terms, but they don't address the actual experience of how one or other aspect of religion becomes existentially meaningful to us in our actual lives. The fact that we ourselves are the subject of investigation makes all the difference. — George Pattison

Compassion can be put into practice if one recognizes the fact that every human being is a member of humanity and the human family regardless of differences in religion, culture, color and creed. Deep down there is no difference. — Dalai Lama

If you are religious, you believe that your religion is the 'right' one - and, in many cases, all others will be sent to hell. Similarly, a nationalist believes his or her nation is better or more advanced - and a racist believes that an inherent difference between each race make his or her ethnicity superior. All of these ideologies spawn the hate, philosophical disagreements, and prejudices that have been the catalysts for various atrocious acts throughout history. — David G. McAfee

I believe in Islam. I am a Muslim and there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim, nothing wrong with the religion of Islam. It just teaches us to believe in Allah as the God. Those of you who are Christian probably believe in the same God, because I think you believe in the God Who created the universe. That's the One we believe in, the One Who created universe
the only difference being you call Him God and we call Him Allah. The Jews call Him Jehovah. If you could understand Hebrew, you would probably call Him Jehovah too. If you could understand Arabic, you would probably call Him Allah ... — Malcolm X

Toynbee emphasized the difference between technological-material progress and true progress, which he defined as spiritualization. He recognized that the Western world was indeed undergoing a crisis, which he attributed to the abandonment of religion for the cult of technology, nationalism, and militarism. For him this crisis had a name: secularism. If you know the cause of an illness, you can also find a cure: The religious heritage in all its forms had to be reintroduced, especially the "heritage of Western Christianity." Rather than a biologistic vision, he offered a voluntaristic one focused on the energy of creative minorities and exceptional individuals. — Pope Benedict XVI

The Sufi recognizes the knowledge of self as the essence of all religions; he traces it in every religion, he sees the same truth in each, and therefore he regards all as one. Hence he can realize the saying of Jesus; 'I and my Father are one.' The difference between creature and Creator remains on his lips, not in his soul. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. — Thomas Jefferson

I'm a religious man," he said. "I don't believe in a particular
God, but even so one can have a faith, something beyond
the limits of rationality. Marxism has a large element of
built-in faith, although it claims to be a science and not
merely an ideology. This is my first visit to the West: until
now I have only been able to go to the Soviet Union or
Poland or the Baltic states. In your country I see an
abundance of material things. It seems to be unlimited. But
there's a difference between our countries that is also a
similarity. Both are poor. You see, poverty has different
faces. We lack the abundance that you have, and we don't
have the freedom of choice. In your country I detect a kind of poverty, which is that you do not need to fight for your
survival. For me the struggle has a religious dimension, and
I would not want to exchange that for your abundance. — Henning Mankell

You are not insane if you believe in things that don't exist. You are insane if you are the only one believing in it. This is the difference between religion and insanity. — Knut Naerum

There's a difference between, you know, God loves unconditionally in my feeling and religion loves conditionally. Religion spends an awful lot of time dictating who God can love and can't love. — Sinead O'Connor

Nothing in any religious teachings goes beyond Humanism, unless you add the supernatural...Make believe is the only difference between being human and being religious. — Travis Culliton

[The haggadah] was made to teach, and it will continue to teach. And it might teach a lot more than just the Exodus story."
What do you mean?"
Well, from what you've told me, the book has survived the same human disaster over and over again. Think about it. You've got a society where people tolerate difference, like Spain in the Convivencia, and everything's humming along: creative, prosperous. Then somehow this fear, this hate, this need to demonize 'the other'
it just sort of rears up and smashes the whole society. Inquisition, Nazis, extremist Serb nationalists ... same old, same old. It seems to me that the book, at this point, bears witness to all that. — Geraldine Brooks

I've had trouble now and again in Nigeria because I have spoken up about the mistreatment of factions in the country because of difference in religion. These are things we should put behind us. — Chinua Achebe

To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.
Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. — Thomas Merton

In other words, when their loyalty to Judaism was removed from the calculation, the majority of the children agreed with the moral judgements that most modern humans would share. Joshua's action was a deed of barbaric genocide. But it all looks different from a religious point of view. And the difference starts early in life. It was religion that made the difference between children condemning genocide and condoning it. In — Richard Dawkins

When I say I must write, I don't mean I must publish. There is a great difference. the important thing is the chaotic form given to my chaotic experience, which is, as it was for James Joyce, my kind of religion, and necessary for me...as the confession and absolution for a Catholic in church. — Sylvia Plath

There is a trend going on in world these days for when people see they can't achieve something or reach somewhere, they start blaming their race, color or religion for it. They give examples or learn from those 99% who could't achieve something, ignoring those 1% who are already there regardless of their color, caste or religion. Only difference between these 99% and those 1% is, they were working hard, trying to break the myths and barriers when other 99% were just sitting at home in the comfort of their couches and crying for their failures, blaming it either on their race or color.Celebrating your races or religions and crying blaming it for your failure everyday, won't take anyone anywhere. Go out, move your feet and work. — Shivam Singh

The difference was principally in the invisible places toward which their respective hearts were turned. They dreamed of Cairo with its autonomous government, its army, its newspapers and its cinema, while he, facing in the same direction, dreamed just a little beyond Cairo, across the Bhar El Hamar to Mecca. They thought in terms of grievances, censorship, petitions and reforms; he, like any good Moslem who knows only the tenets of his religion, in terms of destiny and divine justice. If the word 'independence' was uttered, they saw platoons of Moslem soldiers marching through streets were all the signs were written in Arabic script, they saw factories and power plants rising from the fields; he saw skies of flame, the wings of avenging angels, and total destruction. — Paul Bowles

Tolerance is not a Sapiens trademark. In modern times, a small difference in skin colour, dialect or religion has been enough to prompt one group of Sapiens to set about exterminating another group. Would ancient Sapiens have been more tolerant towards an entirely different human species? It may well be that when Sapiens encountered Neanderthals, the result was the first and most significant ethnic-cleansing campaign in history. — Yuval Noah Harari

There is one difference between mind power and prayer, however, in that subscription to a specific religion, if at all, is not required. — Stephen Richards

The real difference between yoga and religion is this: Religion says believe, do not doubt, often citing the word of God and promises of an eternal afterlife, reciting dogma (unsubstantiated pre-modern myths), while yoga only points the way and urges its students to practice and experience for themselves. In this way yoga is very scientific in its approach to self-knowledge, transcendence and enlightenment. Its message is: Try the practice for yourself and only then can you truly believe. — Gudjon Bergmann

The Christian religion and Masonry have one and the same common origin: Both are derived from the worship of the Sun. The difference between their origin is, that the Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun. — Thomas Paine

We [Americans] have secularized the public life of our country in such a way to say something is religious is something negative. Religion has now turned into a way to discredit people. It is futile and dishonest to argue about religion. Religion is a phenomenological umbrella; there are all kinds of religions. It makes a difference when your religion is telling you something true or something false. — Francis George

There is no difference in the realization of the Truth either by a Muslim, Hindu, Zoroastrian, or a Christian. The difference is only in words and terms. Truth is not the monopoly of a particular race or religion. — Meher Baba

Do you think if it was the fairy tale about a man who lived inside of a whale and it was religion that Jack built a beanstalk today, you would know the difference? Why do you believe in one fairy tale and not the other? Just because adults told you it was true and they scared you into believing it, at pain of death, at pain of burning in hell. — Bill Maher

The third, most important, and unfortunately most widespread justification is, at bottom, the age-old religious one just a little altered: that in public life the suppression of some for the protection of the majority cannot be avoided - so that coercion is unavoidable however desirable reliance on love alone might be in human intercourse. The only difference in this justification by pseudo-science consists in the fact that, to the question why such and such people and not others have the right to decide against whom violence may and must be used, pseudo-science now gives a different reply to that given by religion - which declared that the right to decide was valid because it was pronounced by persons possessed of divine power. 'Science' says that these decisions represent the will of the people, which under a constitutional form of government is supposed to find expression in all the decisions and actions of those who are at the helm at the moment. — Mahatma Gandhi

Religion is not a result of something that you practice. Religion enters in you any moment you relax. Religion is a flowering of relaxation, not a result of practicing. Remember the difference because when you practice you become more tense. — Rajneesh

Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says, do what you like, guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting "Gotcha". It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it.'
'Why not?'
'Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end. — Douglas Adams

Both the mentally healthy and the neurotic are driven by the need to find an answer [to the problem of human existence], the only difference being that one answer corresponds more to the total needs of man, and hence is more conducive to the unfolding of his powers and to his happiness than the other. All cultures provide for a patterned system in which certain solutions are predominant, hence certain strivings and satisfactions ... The deviate from the cultural pattern is just as much in search of an answer as his more well-adjusted brother. His answer may be better or worse than the one given by his culture - it is always another answer to the same fundamental question raised by human existence. In this sense all cultures are religious and every neurosis is a private form of religion, provided we mean by religion an attempt to answer the problem of human existence. — Erich Fromm

The Founding Fathers of the United States understood the risk of tribal religious conflict very well. George Washington observed, "Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing and ought most to be deprecated." James Madison agreed, noting the "torrents of blood" that result from religious competition. John Adams insisted that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." America has slipped a bit since then. — Edward O. Wilson

The test of faith is whether I can make space for difference. Can I recognize God's image in someone who is not in my image, who language, faith, ideal, are different from mine? If I cannot, then I have made God in my image instead of allowing him to remake me in his. — Jonathan Sacks

Far more serious still is the division between the Church of Rome and evangelical Protestantism in all its forms. Yet how great is the common heritage which unites the Roman Catholic Church, with its maintenance of the authority of Holy Scripture and with its acceptance of the great early creeds, to devout Protestants today!
We would not indeed obscure the difference which divides us from Rome. The gulf is indeed profound. But profound as it is, it seems almost trifling compared to the abyss which stands between us and many ministers of our own Church. The Church of Rome may represent a perversion of the Christian religion; but naturalistic liberalism is not Christianity at all. — J. Gresham Machen

How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Men have, for the most part, done with lamenting their lost faith. Sentimental tears over the happy, simple Christendom of their fathers are a thing of the past. They are proclaiming now their contempt for Christ's character, and their disgust at the very name of love. Scorn and hatred, difference and division, must be more than ever our lot, if we would be the followers of Christ in these days. Conventional religion and polite unbelief are gone forever. — Neville Figgis

From a constitutional standpoint, the religion of a candidate is supposed to make no difference. Even before the founding fathers dreamed up the First Amendment, they inserted a provision in the Constitution expressly prohibiting any religious test for office. — Noah Feldman

Humans all have the instinct to determine right from wrong and wrong from right. Religion plays no factor in morals and ethical motive. Did your instinct never tell you that you were doing something wrong when you did? Did your heart never feel the warmth of a good deed? Instinct gave you morals. You gave yourself morals. The whole argument that religion helps us distinguish the difference between right and wrong is buncombe. — J.C. Wickhart

Have never seen that her religion made any difference in her dress. — George Eliot

Both Elizabeth [Smart] and Ruby [Jessop] were fourteen when they were kidnapped, raped and "kept captive by polygamous fanatics." The main difference in the girls' respective ordeals ... is that "Elizabeth was brainwashed for nine months," while Ruby had been brainwashed by polygamist fanatics "since birth." Despite the similarity of their plights, Elizabeth's abusers were jailed and charged with sexual assault, aggravated burglary, and aggravated kidnapping, while Ruby ... "was returned to her abusers, no real investigation was done, no charges brought against anyone" involved. — Jon Krakauer

When the war started, religion and superstition (whatever the difference is) permeated the lives of ordinary soldiers, who lived in a thought world not too far removed from the seventeenth century. — Philip Jenkins

So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church. — David Platt

I look upon the redmen to be quite as human as we are ourselves, Hurry. They have their gifts, and their religion, it's true; but that makes no difference in the end, when each will be judged according to his deeds and not according to his skin. — James Fenimore Cooper

Holding the lamb in his arms, Jesus watched the people file past, some coming, some going, some carrying animals to be sacrificed, some returning without them, looking joyful and exclaiming, Alleluia, Hosanna, Amen, or saying none of these things, feeling it was inappropriate to walk around shouting Hallelujah or Hip hip hurrah, because there is really not much difference between the two expressions, we use them enthusiastically until with the passage of time and by dint of repetition we finally ask ourselves, What does it mean, only to find there is no answer. — Jose Saramago

Henri Nouwen says, "When we come to realize that ... only God saves, then we are free to serve, then we can live truly humble lives." Nouwen changed his approach from "selling pearls," or peddling the good news, to "hunting for the treasure" already present in those he was called to love - a shift from dispensing religion to dispensing grace. It makes all the difference in the world whether I view my neighbor as a potential convert or as someone whom God already loves. — Philip Yancey

[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Abbott says, 'Biggest ... difference ... between ... people ... is ... quality ... of ... attention.' And since a person's quality of attention is one of the few things about her that a human can control, then she better damn well do it, say I. Put that together with the Golden Rule in a nutshell, and you've got my philosophy of life. Abbott's too. And you don't need religion for that. — Russell Banks

The difference between the "natural" individuation process, which runs its course unconsciously, and the one which is consciously realized, is tremendous. In the first case consciousness nowhere intervenes; the end remains as dark as the beginning. In the second case so much darkness comes to light that the personality is permeated with light, and consciousness necessarily gains in scope and insight. The encounter between conscious and unconscious has to ensure that the light which shines in the darkness is not only comprehended by the darkness, but comprehends it. The filius solis et lunae (the son of the Sun and Moon) is the possible result as well as the symbol of this union of opposites. It is the alpha and omega of the process, the mediator and intermedius. "It has a thousand names," say the alchemists, meaning that the source from which the individuation process rises and the goal toward which it aims is nameless, ineffable. — C. G. Jung

What is the difference between my view and the classical Christian perspective? I am convinced that there are not multiple comings and multiple returns of Christ, but only one decisive coming at the end of the world, which includes the resurrection, the rapture, and his appearance in the sky! — Eli Of Kittim

There is absolutely no difference between religion and politics at all in Jesus' time. In other words, every seemingly religious word that came out of Jesus' mouth had very clear and unmistakable political connotations to it. — Reza Aslan

Orthodoxy, however, entails a revolution in our metaphysical conception of the relationship between God and humanity, and therefore between the uncreated Unum and the maior dissimilitudo of the creature before the Unum. Properly understood, the apostolic confession of the unity of Christ does not stand midway between a "too unitive Christology" on the one hand, and a "too differentiating Christology" on the other; rather, it wholly recapitulates the nature of the difference of man before God. — Aaron Riches

In the forefront of science, there is not much difference between religion and science. People harbor beliefs. That's what happens when people believe something religiously. — Dan Shechtman

Today's secular libertarians, who want to remove biblical religion from public life, have trouble making sense of the civil rights movement because it was so clearly a religiously inspired movement that entered the public arena and made a major difference in American life. — Bruce L. Shelley

The difference between religion and morality lies simply in the classical division of things into the divine and the human, if one only interprets this correctly. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

None of that means my family's not spiritual. (Though what happened to Marvin has put me at odds with God these days.) To their credit, our parents have spent considerable time discussing the difference between Faith - the abiding belief in a Divine Creator that's as plain a part of a hundred-year-old oak tree, or a fiery red sunset, as the nose on your face - and Religion - which is the rigamarole that makes some folks figure they've got a leg up on everybody else. — Susan Carol McCarthy

There is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains its maxims. It has no temple nor even a solitary column ... However, out fates at least are social. Our courses do not diverge; but as the web of destiny is woven it is fulled, and we are cast more and more into the centre. Men naturally, though feebly, seek this alliance, and their actions faintly foretell it. We are inclined to lay the chief stress on likeness and not on difference, and in foreign bodies we admit that there are many degrees of warmth below blood heat, but none of cold above it. — Henry David Thoreau

There is little difference in the knowledge held by those who can't learn and those who won't. — Mark Thomas

If you go door to door in our nation and talk to citizens about domestic violence, almost everyone will insist that they do not support male violence against women, that they believe it to be morally and ethically wrong. However, if you then explain that we cannot end male violence against women by challenging patriarchy, and that means no longer accepting the notion that men should have more rights and privileges than women because of biological difference or that men should have the power to rule over women, that is when the agreement stops. There is a gap between the values they claim to hold and their willingness to do the work of connecting thought and action, theory and practice to realize these values and thus create a more just society. — Bell Hooks

Difference of opinion is helpful in religion. — Thomas Jefferson

Admittedly, I do have several bones, whole war fields full of bones, in fact to pick with organised religion of whatever stripe. This should be seen as a critique of purely temporal agencies who have, to my mind, erected more obstacles between whatever notion of spirituality and Godhead one subscribes to than they have opened doors. To me, the difference between Godhead and the Church is the difference between Elvis and Colonel Parker ... although that conjures images of God dying on the toilet, which is not what I meant at all. — Alan Moore

Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society. — George Washington

In a Godless universe, what is the difference between doing unto others that we would wish them to do unto us, and merely appearing to do unto others that we would wish them to do unto us? The answer, alas, is that if there is no God who knows the secrets of our hearts, it is all too easy to appear to be good, and even to do formally good deeds, all of which are empty of real goodness. — Peter Hitchens

People keep framing this as a religious freedom issue, but there's a difference between practicing your religion - which everyone has the right to do - and rubbing your religion in people's faces as a triumphalist political statement, which is what's happening here. — Pat Condell

Cosmopolitanism promotes a sense of new we-ness as regarding every individual human being as a citizen of the cosmos. However, the we-cosmic-citizens are not to promote the we-ness-in-sameness, but rather the we-ness-in-alterity.Unlike the solidarity-in-sameness, cosmopolitan solidarity-in-alterity celebrates the singularity and difference of each individual human being while not denying the historical necessity of the strategic construction of we to challenge the very sociopolitically imposed category — Namsoon Kang

The scientist believes in proof without certainty, the bigot in certainty without proof. — Ashley Montagu

So many nominal Christians throughout history, took no notice whatsoever of the key parable of Jesus Christ himself, which taught that you shall love your neighbour as you love yourself, and even those that you have despised and hated are your neighbours. This never made any difference to Christians, since the primary epiphenomena of any religion's foundation are the production and flourishment of hypocrisy, megalomania and psychopathy, and the first casualties of a religion's establishment are the intensions of its founders. One can imagine Jesus and Mohammed glumly comparing notes in paradise, scratching their heads and bemoaning their vain expense of effort and suffering, which resulted only in the construction of two monumental whited sepulchres ... — Louis De Bernieres

So what is transgressive in the practice of this secret Tantra is the gesture not to elide the difference that women present. What does this mean? That women represent not merely objects, property, or the possibility of sexual gratification, but an opening point to the possibility of difference as the subjectivity of the other. . .Rather, a recognition of the difference women present offers the possibility of a choice not to objectify women. This recognition recodes gendered relations inscribing woman discursively in the place of the subject. — Loriliai Biernacki

In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours; whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The peculiarity of the evidence of mathematical truths is, that all the argument is on one side. There are no objections, and no answers to objections. But on every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of confliting reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there is always some other explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory instead of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and it has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the true on: and until this is shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not understand the grounds of our opinion. But when we turn to subjects infinitely more complicated, to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the business of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favour some opinion different from it. — John Stuart Mill

The difference between my beliefs and having a religious faith is that I am prepared to change my views in light of new evidence, but someone of a religious faith will just stick their fingers in the ears and say: 'I'm not listening, there's nothing you can say that will make me change my mind. — Jim Al-Khalili

Christianity grasped perfectly that there is an element in the apparent contingency of love that can't be reduced to that contingency. But it immediately raised it to the level of transcendence, and that is the root of the problem. This universal element I too recognize in love as immanent. But Christianity has somehow managed to elevate it and refocus it onto a transcendent power. It's an ideal that was already partly present in Plato, through the idea of the Good. It is a brilliant first manipulation of the power of love and one we must now bring back to earth. I mean we must demonstrate that love really does have universal power, but that it is simply the opportunity we are given to enjoy a positive, creative, affirmative experience of difference. The Other, no doubt, but without the "Almighty-Other", without the "Great Other" of transcendence. — Alain Badiou

If you ask the religious person "What do you believe in?" he will tell you about one thing. But if you ask him "What do you not believe in?" he will tell you about many, many things! And if you ask an atheist "What do you believe in?" he will say "Nothing." The only difference between an atheist and a religious person, is one thing. If one thing isn't there, there would be no difference at all! When I say I am losing my religion, I am not saying that I'm losing my belief; but I am saying that I'm losing my disbeliefs. — C. JoyBell C.

I don't believe in religion, but I do believe in God. There's a big difference between the two. — Raymond L. Atkins

I didn't know if I should put my faith in God or Satan. Was there really a difference at the end of the day, when we were all going to be dead souls anyway? — Jess C. Scott

Before passing through the gates of a town I've never visited, I take a minute to salute its saints - the dead and the living, the known and the hidden. Never in my life have I arrived at a new place without getting the blessing of its saints first. It makes no difference to me whether that place belongs to Muslims, Christians, or Jews. I believe that the saints are beyond such trivial nominal distinctions. A saint belongs to all humanity. — Elif Shafak

There is much in this vision that will remind you of your mystics; yet between them and us there is far more difference than similarity, in respect both of the matter and the manner of our thought. For while they are confident that the cosmos is perfect, we are sure only that it is very beautiful. While they pass to their conclusion without the aid of intellect, we have used that staff every step of the way. Thus, even when in respect of conclusions we agree with your mystics rather than your plodding intellectuals, in respect of method we applaud most your intellectuals; for they scorned to deceive themselves with comfortable fantasies. — Olaf Stapledon