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171 books
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98 voters
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(87)
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read (430)
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currently-reading (3)
read (430)
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science-fiction (67)
the-long-game (65)
brilliant-short-books (60)
best-biography-memoir (55)
consciousness (55)
“[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68)”
― Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
― Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
“A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God
who interfered with human freedom and creativity was a tyrant. If God is
seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that
relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect, he becomes a
being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all‐knowing tyrant is not so
different from earthly dictators who make everything and
everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism
that rejects such a God is amply justified.”
―
who interfered with human freedom and creativity was a tyrant. If God is
seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that
relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect, he becomes a
being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all‐knowing tyrant is not so
different from earthly dictators who make everything and
everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism
that rejects such a God is amply justified.”
―
“Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, of self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.”
― The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
― The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
“Respect only has meaning as respect for those with whom I do not agree.”
― A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
― A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
“Theology is-- or should be-- a species of poetry,which read quickly or encountered in a hubbub of noise makes no sense. You have to open yourself to a poem with a quiet, receptive mind, in the same way you might listen to a difficult piece of music... If you seize upon a poem and try to extort its meaning before you are ready, it remains opaque. If you bring your own personal agenda to bear upon it, the poem will close upon itself like a clam, because you have denied its unique and separate identity, its inviolate holiness.”
― The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
― The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
BETH’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at BETH’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
594 books
|
15 friends
271 books
|
652 friends
68 books
|
64 friends
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