Sign in with Facebook
“There is in this minimal religion nothing that can convince, convert, or (in the higher sense) console; nothing, therefore, which can restore vitality to our civilization. It is not costly enough. It can never be a controller or even a rival to our natural sloth and greed.”
― God in the Dock
― God in the Dock
“For I cannot help thinking that any religion which begins with a thirst for immortality is damned, as a religion, from the outset.”
― God in the Dock
― God in the Dock
“For the essence of religion, in my view, is the thirst for an end higher than natural ends; the finite self’s desire for, and acquiescence in, and self-rejection in favour of, an object wholly good and wholly good for it. That the self-rejection will turn out to be also a self-finding, that bread cast upon the waters will be found after many days, that to die is to live—these are sacred paradoxes of which the human race must not be told too soon.”
― God in the Dock
― God in the Dock
“If there is no God then we have no interest in the minimal religion or any other. We will not make a lie even to save civilization. But if there is, then it is so probable as to be almost axiomatic that the initiative lies wholly on His side. If He can be known it will be by self-revelation on His part, not by speculation on ours. We, therefore, look for Him where it is claimed that He has revealed Himself by miracle, by inspired teachers, by enjoined ritual. The traditions conflict, yet the longer and more sympathetically we study them the more we become aware of a common element in many of them: the theme of sacrifice, of mystical communion through the shed blood, of death and rebirth, of redemption, is too clear to escape notice.”
― God in the Dock
― God in the Dock
“In what way will a belief in the immortality vouched for by Psychical Research, and in an unknown God, restore to us the virtue and energy of our ancestors? It seems to me that both beliefs, unless reinforced by something else, will be to modern man very shadowy and inoperative. If indeed we knew that God were righteous, that He had purposes for us, that He was the leader in a cosmic battle and that some real issue hung on our conduct in the field, then it would be something to the purpose. Or if, again, the utterances which purport to come from the other world ever had the accent which really suggests another world, ever spoke (as even the inferior actual religions do) with that voice before which our mortal nature trembles with awe or joy,”
― God in the Dock
― God in the Dock
Joel Griffith’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Joel Griffith’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,705 books
|
258 friends
2,826 books
|
374 friends
1,177 books
|
328 friends
426 books
|
82 friends
141 books
|
150 friends
442 books
|
214 friends
32 books
|
145 friends
604 books
|
65 friends
More friends…
Polls voted on by Joel Griffith
Lists liked by Joel Griffith
