Quotes with faithful

Inspirational quotes with faithful.

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About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others—while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity—so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities… but there, there. Enough.

Were you there?”She shook her head. “No. I was here in Nain having achild.”“Then why do you weep as though you had part in hiscrucifixion? You had no part in it.”“I’d like nothing better than to think I would haveremained faithful. But if those closest to him—hisdisciples, his own brothers—turned away, who am I tothink I’m better than they and would have donedifferently? No, Marcus. We all wanted what wewanted, and when the Lord fulfilled his purpose ratherthan ours, we struck out against him. Like you. In anger.Like you. In disappointment. Yet, it is God’s will thatprevails.”He looked away. “I don’t understand any of this.”“I know you don’t. I see it in your face, Marcus. Youdon’t want to see. You’ve hardened your heart againsthim.” She started to walk again.“As should all who value their lives,” he said, thinking ofHadassah’s death.“It is God who has driven you here.”He gave a derisive laugh. “I came here of my ownaccord and for my own purposes.”“Did you?” Marcus’ face became stony.Deborah pressed on. “We were all created incompleteand will find no rest until we satisfy the deepest hungerand thirst within us. You’ve tried to satisfy it in your ownway. I see that in your eyes, too, as I’ve seen it in somany others. And yet, though you deny it with your lastbreath, your soul yearns for God, Marcus LucianusValerian.”Her words angered him. “Gods aside, Rome showsthe world that life is what man makes of it.”“If that’s so, what are you making of yours?”“I own a fleet of ships, as well as emporiums andhouses. I have wealth.” Yet, even as he told her, heknew it all meant nothing. His father had come to thatrealization just before he died. Vanity. It was all vanity.Meaningless. Empty.Old Deborah paused on the pathway. “Rome points theway to wealth and pleasure, power and knowledge. ButRome remains hungry. Just as you are hungry now.Search all you will for retribution or meaning to your life,but until you find God, you live in vain.



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