Rolando

“bey, the other the scholar, in this world below ... the former with his glove or his fist commands the people, the latter with his knowledge shows the path.”
― Hester Donaldson Jenkins, Ibrahim Pasha: Grand Vizir of Suleiman the Magnificent

“Yet it is perhaps worth mentioning that the masculine tenor of God-talk is particularly problematic in English. In Hebrew, Arabic and French, however, grammatical gender gives theological discourse a sort of sexual counterpoint and dialectic, which provides a balance that is often lacking in English. Thus in Arabic al-Lah (the supreme name for God) is grammatically masculine, but the word for the divine and inscrutable essence of God—al-Dhat—is feminine.”
― Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

“The orderly is nearing the end of his rounds. I can hear his footsteps echoing in the hall and his ragged breathing. He’s a big man. I can smell his sweat. He’s checking on the inmate next door. It’ll be my turn next. He always saves me for last. I guess it’s because he’s scared of me. I don’t blame him. I’m scared of me, too.”
― Nancy A. Collins, Sunglasses After Dark

“When one conception of God has ceased to have meaning or relevance, it has been quietly discarded and replaced by a new theology. A fundamentalist would deny this, since fundamentalism is antihistorical: it believes that Abraham, Moses and the later prophets all experienced their God in exactly the same way as people do today. Yet if we look at our three religions, it becomes clear that there is no objective view of “God”: each generation has to create the image of God that works for it. The same is true of atheism. The statement “I do not believe in God” has meant something slightly different at each period of history. The”
― Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam