Politics and religion

Source: Indeterminable

As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?

~ Stephen King

Religions

Source: Speechfoodie

Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you—even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers, and triumphs over all opposition. Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world. So none of this is happening. Such things could not occur. Never a word of it is literally true.

~ Neil Gaiman

Rounds

Source: Favim (adapted by Srivilasica)

Downstreet from OM we opened
A bar called AMEN, where the noise
complaints came from above,

where our choir howl swept
the dust. Ask the Jehovists:
they’re slow to trust the dark, corroding
our confidence in flashlights—our faith
in the warm beer of blackouts,
and they LIGHT candles to make wishes
and we DARKEN OUR DOORS

with mezuzahs, our floors with mandalas,
but catch you on the flipside
never meant anything to me.
Waking from nights out, dawn
long gone seems so spirit heavy, grave.
Our pains are answers to our prayers.

~ John Cotter & Shafer Hall

Rounds

Source: Favim (adapted by Srivilasica)

Downstreet from OM we opened
A bar called AMEN, where the noise
complaints came from above,

where our choir howl swept
the dust. Ask the Jehovists:
they’re slow to trust the dark, corroding
our confidence in flashlights—our faith
in the warm beer of blackouts,
and they LIGHT candles to make wishes
and we DARKEN OUR DOORS

with mezuzahs, our floors with mandalas,
but catch you on the flipside
never meant anything to me.
Waking from nights out, dawn
long gone seems so spirit heavy, grave.
Our pains are answers to our prayers.

~ John Cotter & Shafer Hall

Quote on religions

Credit: Boloji.com

I came to the conclusion long ago … that all religions were true and also that all had some error in them, and whilst I hold by my own, I should hold others as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we are Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu … But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian.

~ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Quote on religions

Credit: Boloji.com

I came to the conclusion long ago … that all religions were true and also that all had some error in them, and whilst I hold by my own, I should hold others as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we are Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu … But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian.

~ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Quote on religion

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message; that is love, compassion and forgiveness... the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

~ Dalai Lama XIV

Quote on religion

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message; that is love, compassion and forgiveness... the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

~ Dalai Lama XIV

Quote on freedom

Photo credit: miekaspop from morguefile.com 

Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

~ Thomas Jefferson

Quote on freedom

Photo credit: miekaspop from morguefile.com 

Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

~ Thomas Jefferson

Nonadaptation

Photo credit: puravida from morguefile.com

I was not made to live anywhere except in Paradise.

Such, simply, was my genetic inadaptation.

Here on earth every prick of a rose-thorn changed into a wound.
whenever the sun hid behind a cloud, I grieved.

I pretended to work like others from morning to evening,
but I was absent, dedicated to invisible countries.

For solace I escaped to city parks, there to observe
and faithfully describe flowers and trees, but they changed,
under my hand, into the gardens of Paradise.

I have not loved a woman with my five senses.
I only wanted from her my sister, from before the banishment.

And I respected religion, for on this earth of pain
it was a funereal and a propitiatory song.

~ Czeslaw Milosz

Nonadaptation

Photo credit: puravida from morguefile.com

I was not made to live anywhere except in Paradise.

Such, simply, was my genetic inadaptation.

Here on earth every prick of a rose-thorn changed into a wound.
whenever the sun hid behind a cloud, I grieved.

I pretended to work like others from morning to evening,
but I was absent, dedicated to invisible countries.

For solace I escaped to city parks, there to observe
and faithfully describe flowers and trees, but they changed,
under my hand, into the gardens of Paradise.

I have not loved a woman with my five senses.
I only wanted from her my sister, from before the banishment.

And I respected religion, for on this earth of pain
it was a funereal and a propitiatory song.

~ Czeslaw Milosz

Christ Is the Kind of Guy

Image: TeddyBear[Picnic]/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Christ is the kind of guy

you just can't help hurting

No matter how much you love him

when you walk you stumble into him

you push him accidentally from a window

If you back the car out

you will find him squashed behind the wheels

broken on the door--all over the grate

Christ has the kind of skin

that bruises when you hold him

the kind of face that

kisses cut

He is always breaking open

when we go to embrace him

Christ the haemophiliac

even the gentlest people can't help

wounding Jesus Christ

They are always running for a band-aid

and then pulling open his old wounds

on a nail

If there is a cross in your house

you will find yourself bumping up against him

accidentally

moving him closer and closer to it

his arms continually more and more

widespread as he talks

Christ is the kind of guy

who can't help falling asleep like that

his arms spread wide as though over the whole world

You have a dream with a hammer

You are making a house

In the morning you awake

and find him up there on the crossbeams

one hand nailed to the door frame

"Look Jesus" you say

"I don't want to be saved like this!"

But then you hurt him

extra

taking him down

you pry at the nails savagely

but it's no use

Christ is the kind of saviour

you can only get off a cross

with a blow torch

"Father forgive them" he says

as you begin to burn his hands

~ Robert Priest

__________________________________

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. ~ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Christ Is the Kind of Guy

Image: TeddyBear[Picnic]/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Christ is the kind of guy

you just can't help hurting

No matter how much you love him

when you walk you stumble into him

you push him accidentally from a window

If you back the car out

you will find him squashed behind the wheels

broken on the door--all over the grate

Christ has the kind of skin

that bruises when you hold him

the kind of face that

kisses cut

He is always breaking open

when we go to embrace him

Christ the haemophiliac

even the gentlest people can't help

wounding Jesus Christ

They are always running for a band-aid

and then pulling open his old wounds

on a nail

If there is a cross in your house

you will find yourself bumping up against him

accidentally

moving him closer and closer to it

his arms continually more and more

widespread as he talks

Christ is the kind of guy

who can't help falling asleep like that

his arms spread wide as though over the whole world

You have a dream with a hammer

You are making a house

In the morning you awake

and find him up there on the crossbeams

one hand nailed to the door frame

"Look Jesus" you say

"I don't want to be saved like this!"

But then you hurt him

extra

taking him down

you pry at the nails savagely

but it's no use

Christ is the kind of saviour

you can only get off a cross

with a blow torch

"Father forgive them" he says

as you begin to burn his hands

~ Robert Priest

__________________________________

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. ~ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

A Mermaid Questions God

Photo credit: pedrojperez from morguefile.com

As a girl, she hated the grain of anything

on her fins. Now she is part fire ant, part centipede.

Where dunes stretch into pathways, arteries appear.

Her blood pressure is temperature plus wind speed.

Where religion is a thousand miles of coastline,

she is familiar with moon size, with tide changes.

She wears the cream of waves like a vestment,

knows undertow is imaginary, not something to pray to.

Now her questions involve fairytales, begin

in a garden and lead to hands painted on a chapel's ceiling.

She wants to hold the ribbon grass, the shadow of angels

across the shore. She steals a Bible from the Seashore Inn;

she will trust it only if it floats.

~ Kelli Russell Agodon

A Mermaid Questions God

Photo credit: pedrojperez from morguefile.com

As a girl, she hated the grain of anything

on her fins. Now she is part fire ant, part centipede.

Where dunes stretch into pathways, arteries appear.

Her blood pressure is temperature plus wind speed.

Where religion is a thousand miles of coastline,

she is familiar with moon size, with tide changes.

She wears the cream of waves like a vestment,

knows undertow is imaginary, not something to pray to.

Now her questions involve fairytales, begin

in a garden and lead to hands painted on a chapel's ceiling.

She wants to hold the ribbon grass, the shadow of angels

across the shore. She steals a Bible from the Seashore Inn;

she will trust it only if it floats.

~ Kelli Russell Agodon