Robert Castillo

“The soil from which all sin grows is unbelief. We sin because it is our nature to do so, but it’s not as if we always sin unintentionally, like depraved robots without the ability to behave according to reason. We are thoughtful with our rebellion. There is a level of reasoning within us when we decide which golden calf we’ll love on any given day.”
― Jackie Hill Perry, Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him

“Holiness is what makes real love possible. Without it, love is purely sentimental, easily misplaced, and unconditionally conditional.”
― Jackie Hill Perry, Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him

“In the homes for the dying, Mother taught the sisters how to secretly baptize those who were dying. Sisters were to ask each person in danger of death if he wanted a “ticket to heaven.” An affirmative reply was to mean consent to baptism. The sister was then to pretend she was just cooling the person’s forehead with a wet cloth, while in fact she was baptizing him, saying quietly the necessary words. Secrecy was important so that it would not come to be known that Mother Teresa’s sisters were baptizing Hindus and Moslems.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice

“Now, compare God to everything and tell me what you see. What I hope you noticed is that everything that exists has a beginning, is a derivative, is contingent upon something else for its life. Paul describes our lot as creatures, pointing to how it’s only in God that we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Can the same be said about God? Of course not. This is what is referred to as God’s transcendence. It means that God is totally unique from everything there is. God doesn’t exist and cannot exist in the same way as we do or anything for that matter; setting Him apart from all creation as a being that is distinct from it: holy. So, in this, we see that God’s holiness is about moral purity, yes, and it’s also about transcendent, self-existing otherness. It’s about being totally right and eternally existent. Which, of course, only God is.”
― Jackie Hill Perry, Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him