Category Archives: Quotations

Pick ‘n’ Mix

Another collection of short, bite-sized pieces of wisdom. All of these quotations are used with the kind permission of their authors.

Just because someone in a Bible study answers all your questions, it doesn’t mean that those answers are right
 – Me

Human judgment often condemns and crushes.
Divine judgment always helps and heals.
Why don’t we get this?
Jesus is Jehovah-Rapha (the God that heals), not Jehovah-the-Ripper.
 – Richard Murray

Faith expressing itself through love, not fear, is the manifestation of the life of Christ within.
 – Jeff Turner

[Replying to a friend who is undergoing cancer treatment but nevertheless pushed his limits in going to an event he really wanted to go to] Some things you just have to do. I have a relative who also gets exhausted quickly and easily (although not for the same reason as you) but sometimes they just have to say, Look, I’m doing this…I might regret it later in terms of pain but it would be worse to forever regret missing the opportunity. Glad you had a good time. Sometimes, that’s as good a medicine as all the drugs in the pharmacy.
 – Me

Your questions aren’t dangerous. The people telling you not to ask them are.
 – Jeff Turner

And when challenged about this, they will produce proof text after proof text to continue driving you into the ground with the piledriver of weaponised Scripture. But by that time you should be out of earshot, because you will have walked away 😀
 – Me

When you find your belief system to be the thing keeping you from becoming a better person, summon the courage to become a better person than your beliefs.
 – Jeff Turner

Isaiah 30:21 says, “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying “this is the way, walk in it.” Sadly, these days it’s usually the Pastor…
 – Me

I have been saying this for years now, but the notion that sin can separate a ”sinner” from God is as absurd as the notion that cancer can separate a cancer-sufferer from the oncologist. If cancer were to separate an oncologist from a cancer-sufferer then the oncologist could never separate the cancer-sufferer from cancer. Likewise, if “sin” could separate the “sinner” from God, then God could never separate the “sinner” from sin.
 – Jeff Turner

“You don’t know everything” is an axiom that everyone should live by.
Unfortunately, many people in the world are thick as three short planks – I call them the ‘Unintelligentsia’. They usually do think (and that’s being generous) that they know a lot, and usually that they know more than everyone else. For me, being an actual recognised genius, it has always been a problem to cope tactfully with the ignorant, especially when these people can influence others’ lives.

But still, I openly declare that “[I] don’t know everything”. And part of humility is being willing to defer to those who have the better knowledge in all cases where that applies. And that’s how we learn.
 – Me

For so many, the thing that ruined Jesus for them wasn’t the lure of sin, but the lovelessness of Christians.
 – Chris Kratzer

The irony of the song ‘Oceans‘ is that it actually goes against the way that Church leadership like their people to behave. Sure, let’s sing about God being top of the list; about Him being Number-One in their lives; or about how much they love Him. But Oceans sings about being out in the deep waters, away from human control (even our own) and trusting entirely in God. At the end of the day, that is the kind of thing that gets Christians kicked out of these churches, because when God starts showing the believer things that they can only learn out in the deep waters of faith, those who have not been there do not understand, nor can they ever do so until they have been there themselves. And human leadership doesn’t like it when the Spirit gets real control of people like that, because the Spirit blows where He wills, not where humans want Him to.
 – Me

We might have been created the same, but we have not become the same.
 – Chris Kratzer

“Could the disobedience [of Adam and Eve] have been part of an expected and desired process that would lead to a greater state of mankind?” Yes, I think that’s exactly what it is. I think the fall was an essential part of humanity realising its godliness. ‘You will become like God…’ says the serpent. And yet that’s the point all along; to be transformed into His likeness. No-one ever seems to notice the parallel there.
 – Me

If fear of eternal fire is the only thing keeping you from living a morally bankrupt life, you have more pressing matters to attend to, and bigger questions to answer, than does the one who rejects the concept of eternal conscious torment altogether.
 – Jeff Turner

Who is God? This is the first question we need to try to answer on our faith reconstruction journey. Where do we turn for ideas? If God is real, then we don’t get to decide who He is. We just get to discover Him.
 – Christy Lynne Wood

I have to jokingly say that [a preacher from a church I used to attend] would be a preacher I would invite to speak if I thought the congregation was getting too happy. He’d soon put the kibosh on that.
 – Me

“Blessed are the cracked, for they let the light in.”
 – Dave Tomlinson

As a professional laboratory scientist, I could never allow my kids to eat ‘Pick ‘n’ Mix’ sweets. Because the boxes containing the sweets were wide open to the environment, the opportunity was rife for kids literally to pick [their noses] and mix [the products of those excavations with the sweets]. That’s just asking for it… 😉

Hors D’Ouvres

Another collection of bite-sized chunks of wisdom, humour and downright inanity for my readers’ delectation.

Enjoy!

“If you find that your heart has grown bigger than your doctrine, know that it is the doctrine that needs to go, not the heart that needs to be restricted.”
– Jeff Turner

“It is far easier to lie convincingly to someone than to convince someone they were lied to”.
– Elim Garak, Star Trek – Deep Space Nine

“Alexa, why do I have relationship issues with women?”
“This is Siri…”
– Anon

“It’s amazing that people in the Bible heard directly from God but people today need a Bible to hear from Him”.
– Jamen

“…trying to hug reality with words”
– Wendy Francisco

“If you’re going to err, err on the side of love and acceptance and inclusion and trust God with the rest. And the real question here is, ‘Do you trust God enough to do that?’ Are you willing to just love and let go and let God handle everything else, or do you feel like you need to intervene? Do you trust God enough to let go?”
– Rob Cottrell

“In any legitimate and honest search for truth about a matter, one must first consider at least the possibility that one’s current belief might not be true. Otherwise, why even bother looking? Honest doubts are the fuel that propels any legitimate search for truth”.
– Richard Goyette

“But failure is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that you are alive and growing”
– Col. ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, United States Air Force

“I personally think, after being a church guy my entire life, that religion’s greatest fear is that the manifesting sons and daughters will discover just how powerful they really are, which will result in a total loss of religion’s manipulation and control that came through generations of convincing people of the lie that they are separated from God; worthless sinners headed for eternal torture if they don’t toe the line”.
– Dr. Don Keathley

“Don’t waste your time debating with people who are committed to misunderstanding you…especially those who just don’t believe there’s any chance they could be wrong”.
– Robert Cottrell

”  ‘….if I could imagine what it would be like to experience judgment…’
Well, we do. Every day. For some people, their sole purpose in life is to judge others; we are surrounded by judgmentalism. But God’s not like that. If there is such a thing as a final judgment (which I doubt), all we will get is ‘this is my child, with whom I am well pleased’. I know that’s how He feels about me now; why should that ever change?”
– Me

“Only an aircraft is tied to nothing. There is a complete sense of detachment and isolation in the sky”.
– Capt. Laura Savino, Jet Boss: A Female Pilot on Taking Risks and Flying High

—-

“If God created you to be you, but you being you isn’t good enough, then why did God create you in the first place?”
– Chris Kratzer

“Religion tries to get you TO a place of victory while grace has you living FROM a place of victory.”

– Don Keathley

“Both the 7th day at creation and Jesus’s “it is finished” from the cross refer to man’s inability or necessity to add to what God had done. We can neither add to, nor take away from, a completed work. Nothing is needed.

“Our response to what is finished does not make it finished. Our response makes us subjectively experience what is finished.

“Our lack of response does not make it unfinished. Our lack of response prevents us from being aware of what is finished.

“Today, rest in your completeness”.
– Dale O’Neal

“I love you more than anything you could ever do wrong”
– Maarva Andor, Star Wars: Andor, S1 Ep.12

“Most evangelical churches are built on opposing doctrines. Come just as you are and be saved by grace, now that grace saved you let me tell you the laws you must keep to stay saved…. It’s the old bait and switch. Bait with grace then switch to law once grace hooks them”.
– Don Keathley

“If leaving religion causes you to give up on God…then…you had a relationship with religion, not a relationship with God!”
– Glenn Regular

“Don’t limit the way that the Spirit of truth can bring you revelation, truth and the solution. He is much larger than the 66 books that comprise your Bible. He will come down any road to deliver what you need.”
– Don Keathley

“God doesn’t do guilt, period.

“So: if anyone ever, ever, EVER tries to guilt you into anything, it isn’t God.”
– Rob Grayson

“Having the Mind of Christ is not a big mystery. It is a mind that thinks in sync with the mind of the Father and expresses itself by saying and doing what the Father says and does…”
– Don Keathley

“The bit in Hebrews 12, about the ‘sin that so easily entangles’, is precisely about the obsession with sin. Sin (whatever it is) has nothing to do with the redeemed any more; we are dead to it. It’s obsolete”.
– Me

The narrow way is Jesus plus nothing. You will never fit through the gate carrying all your religious “I must do to be accepted by God” baggage…
– Don Keathley

“The idea that ‘it’s always darkest just before the dawn’ was clearly invented by someone who was still in bed at the time. And the bloke who said ‘Slow and steady wins the race’ always came last”.
– Me

 

 

 

Morsels

Some people will judge you for changing. Others will celebrate you for growing. Choose your circle carefully.
– Anon

Let your work and your thinking be driven by a sense of amazement at how brilliant things actually are, not by the need to be vindicated.
– Me

As I like to say, when I’m not exactly sure what I want to say, “I’m going to give the wrong answer first.”
– Josh

Me [to someone vocally judging another person]: ‘Quit bloody judging people and go look in a mirror!’
Judgmental person: ‘Ooooh! You just cussed! That’s a sin in the eyes of the LORD, that is; just you wait ’til I tell Him…’
Me: <thinking> Distraction successful. Job done (how piss-easy was that?) </thinking>
– Me

We shouldn’t conclude that someone doesn’t care about a problem just because they don’t agree with our ideas about how to resolve it.
– Diana

When Jesus said ‘Do not worry’, He was talking about daily needs like food and clothing. If He’d been at all concerned that we were not worrying enough about our ‘eternal destiny’, He would have preached a whole lot more on hellfire and damnation, rather than about us simply not worrying about where our next meal was going to come from.
– Me

You will not heal by going back to what broke you.
– Anon

Yesterday morning, I was so bored with the currently-playing dream that I actually smiled when my alarm went off.
– Me

Unforgiveness is like drinking a poison and expecting someone else to die from it.
– Anon

What a pathetic god they believe in. Unable to get his way, he flings his image bearers into a fire forever rather than spend any of his infinite love or power trying to restore them. What a dick.
– Dave

If you have a problem with me, call me. If you don’t have my number, you don’t know me well enough to have a problem with me.
– Derrick Day

I didn’t want to bring people to my old church precisely because I didn’t want them to hear about the loving God I personally know, in such terrible terms [as one who would send people to burn forever in hell]. I see that now. I wasn’t sure back then why I was so reluctant, but this is why.
– Me

If you make someone’s suffering a bit more bearable today, and their burden a little less heavy, you will have manifested more of God than most religions and ideologies ever get around to doing in their entire life-cycle.
– Jeff Turner

[On people not wanting to be called Christians any more because of the bad behaviour of right-wing Evangelical nasties]:
I won’t let the pirates and interlopers steal my own birthright: the right to carry the Name of the One Who loves me. Come what may, and given all the negative connotations that the name carries, it’s still my birthright. Tarnished and sullied by the unclean it may be, but it still means the world to me.
– Me

These things just never look quite the way you pictured them when praying for them, because if they were exactly what you wanted, they wouldn’t be what you needed.
– Jeff Turner

No Christian should ever cause anyone to doubt that God loves them.
– Keith Giles

Judgmentalism is the root of all sin, imo.
– Me

Faith is not something we do to persuade God; faith is what happens to us when we realize how persuaded God is about us.
– Francois Du Toit

Enjoy what you know; look forward with anticipation to knowing more than you know now; and, most important, enjoy the journey of discovery! 🙂
– Me

 

Elevenses

“Jesus: ‘You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy’; but I say to you, love your enemies.’ For the 1st century Jews, the effect was the same as if a preacher stood up today and said, ‘The Bible says……but I say to you…..’”
– Brian Zahnd

Deconstructing our faith is letting go of any part of whatever you believe that does NOT tell you that you are absolutely, unconditionally acceptance, included, loved and beloved. It can be scary and feel overwhelming.  But it is one of the most beautiful things you will ever do. What remains is real and pure and celebrates who you are, without condition.
– Susan Cottrell

When a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try and control those around you, and how those around you perceive you
– Sacha DeSouza

If you love, and love well, I don’t really care what you call yourself. You embody my faith, which, so said Paul, counts only when expressing itself through love.
I know a great many people who, in silence and anonymity, better flesh out the faith many claim to have than most (including myself) who insist on labeling what they have.
– Jeff Turner

Religion: You have to understand an ancient Jewish text correctly to have knowledge of God.
Spirit: No, you don’t. Realize it was the story and descriptions of their experiences, centuries ago and create your stories with your own descriptions of your own experiences today.
– Ken Etter

Troll comment [talking about brother Christians who don’t believe the same as she does]: “And they will also be going to hell for their sins against God/Jesus”

Me: “Nah, God says ‘I will remember their sins no more’. It’s right there in your Rulebook, with no conditions attached”
– Me

Everyone fails at being who they’re supposed to be. The important thing is to succeed in being who you really are.
– Sue

Grace does not close your eyes to sin. Grace opens your eyes to your identity as righteous, and behaviour always follows identity.
– Don Keathley

“Love Me or burn”. Put like that, it’s easy to see that God just isn’t like that.
– Me

[commenting on incorrect apostrophe use in a ‘credible’ video] It seems like people put in extra work to look less intelligent
-Anon

Grace teaches that the Father gives gifts, not merit badges.
– Don Keathley

[To a judgmental person on a forum] Is it your entire calling in life to judge others, or is it just something that you do in your spare time?
– Me

I’ve decided to stay up on New Year’s Eve this year. Not to see the New Year in, but to make sure this one leaves…
– Graham

To believe God cannot look at sin is anti-biblical.
Habakkuk states otherwise.
Jesus being with sinners states otherwise.
Jesus becoming human states otherwise.
Jesus becoming sin for us states otherwise.
Be careful what you believe and have been taught.
– Dale

“Christianity is like a swimming-pool. All the noise comes from the shallow end.”
– Quote from a US theologian.

Do you know why old men study the scriptures? it is because they are cramming for final exams.
– Richard Carlin

[In response to a really wise statement] “I am tattooing this to my soul.”
– ‘Lace’

 

Le Pique-Nique

Pique – Nique is of course French for ‘Picnic’

Another collection of (hopefully) profound and/or interesting quotes from across the Internet. Oddly, many of them this time around are by anonymous people.

Oh well. Enjoy 🙂 :


People seem to have a tendency to treat their notions about God as though the notions are God.
– Anon

I’ve been struggling to sleep recently, but I got half way through your comment and was out like a light for a solid 8 hours. Thank you so much!
– Anon

The [high-control religious cult] are entitled to their own beliefs, but they are not entitled to their own facts.
– Gordon

A baby bird honors the egg by breaking it, not by remaining inside of it longer than it should and dying. There are some things in your life that you are meant to honor by breaking.
– Jeff Turner

If God desires us to love Him in any serious way, He would be stupid to threaten us with Hell. Or any other punishment. Once punishment is introduced, any action comes from fear, not love.
– Susie

If wrath would be a property of God it would be the 10th fruit of the Spirit. It is not.
– Anon

Do not be concerned so much with what people say and think about you. That only causes you not to believe what God says about you.
– Dave Adams

God Has
More Faith In You
Than
You Have In God
– Mo Thomas

That’s one of the major reasons I left [a well-known Fundamentalist church]; it’s difficult to take a church service seriously when it’s basically Sunday School with bigger words.
– Dane

Probably the number one thing that has given me hope is the idea that I’ve always been good underneath all of the lies; that the truth is for me and not against me.
– Amy

The Bible worshippers think God stopped speaking after the last word in the book of Revelation. Then they limit God to just be a sign poster pointing you back at the Bible.
– Kehinde

We often say that the good is the enemy of the best, and we should add to it that the familiar is the enemy of the possible.
– Jeff Turner

Jesus says in John on one occasion that the Spirit would lead the disciples into all truth. In another, He says no one can come to Him unless the Father draws them. Nowhere does it say the Bible will do either. So when evangelicals put a greater emphasis on the authority of the Bible, they minimize the Spirit’s role in both the incarnation and resurrection. The Bible did not become incarnate nor was it raised from the dead. Jesus was and did.
– Anon

Only love that cannot be changed by our behaviour can actually change our behaviour.
– Dave Griffiths

The only “sinner’s prayer” that will ever matter was not prayed by you, but on your behalf: “Father, forgive them. They have no idea what they’re doing.”
– Jeff Turner

“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom – it’s how we first begin to take God seriously. But if we stay on the road of divine wisdom long enough, we finally discover that God is love and One from whom we have nothing to fear. Indeed, perfect love casts out all fear.”
– Brian Zahnd

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”
– Lenny Bruce

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is; it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.
– Richard Feynman

Have you learned that you can’t speak butterfly language with caterpillar people?
– Don Keathley

 

 

All You Can Eat

There is a subtle but important difference between ‘All you can eat’, like you get offered sometimes in restaurants, to ‘Eat all you can’, which I don’t really think is the restaurant’s intention 😉

I will let you work it out.

But for today, here’s another buffet-style meal of tasty quotes from around the Internet.

Tuck in!


“I always have been, and always will be, your Saviour”
– Jesus

Nothing discourages, dilutes, dissipates, disperses, and, dare I say, destroys the human soul like the pursuit of other people’s respect. Have it for yourself and if others catch on, great. If not, don’t lose a moment of consciousness thinking on it.
– Jeff Turner

People who claim that they went to the ‘University of Life’ and’or the ‘School of Hard Knocks’ are simply highlighting the fact that they never went to University
– Anon

The Gospel does not invite you to receive Christ, but states, as an unchangeable fact, that He has received you.
– Jeff Turner

[Speaking of a photo of a legalism preacher who doesn’t look all that happy] No wonder he’s looking so fed up. He’s missed that the Kingdom of God is not about following rules, but about righteousness, peace and joy. One is a set of behaviours. The other is a state of being. I know where I’d rather live
– Me

Yeah, my ‘salvation’ was cancelled by several people for actively and publicly building bridges with our local mosque.
– Dave [speaking of ‘Heaven’s gate-keepers‘]

Thinking that God is always trying to fix you instead of love you, will cause you to try and fix others instead of love them.
– Matthew Knickle

Please do not mistake my politeness for agreement
– Me

Why go to school if you’re not going to listen to experts?
– Anon

The disasters [ascribed to God] in the OT were, I think natural disasters. That they were ascribed to God says more about the people, or rather about the people’s image of God (which, let’s face it, was probably based upon them making their god in their own image), than it does about God Himself.
– Me

I don’t spend time grieving over healthy actions that were deemed sinful by the folklore of illiterate nomads thousands of years ago.
– Becky Michele

“I seek to end my days on an upward trajectory”
– ‘Michael’

Gratitude puts everything into perspective
– Me

“Compromise where you can. But where you can’t, don’t. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right; even if the whole world is telling you to move. It is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and say, ‘no. You move.'”
– Peggy Carter (quoted by Sharon Carter in the movie Captain America – Civil War)

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. But there probably isn’t a will…
– Anon

A god who saves you from himself is a god in whose presence you will never truly feel safe. – Jeff Turner

The phrase ‘Qualifications don’t mean anything’ is most often used by people who themselves have no qualifications.
– Me

“Grace doesn’t sell; you can hardly even give it away, because it works only for losers and no one wants to stand in their line.”
– Robert Farrar Capon

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”
– Richard P. Feynman

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are
– Chinese proverb

Labels serve almost no positive purpose in the hands of those who don’t know us. And are irrelevant in the hands of those who do
– Phil Drysdale

As I get older, I realise being wrong is not a bad thing, like they teach you in school. It is an opportunity to learn something
– Richard Feynman

Buffet Lunch

Another collection of tasty treats:

“Your picture is on God’s fridge”
– Susan Cottrell

“When we say that Christ “paid the debt, once and for all”, it simply means that God’s job is to make up for all deficiencies in the universe.

“What else would God do?

“Basically, grace is Gods first name, and probably last too. Grace is what God does to keep all things he has made in love and alive- forever

“Grace is not something God gives; grace is who God is”
– Richard Rohr

[After explaining a medical question, in a simple way, to a friend] “This is science, but it’s not rocket science. I don’t do that 😀 ”
– Me

[Speaking of someone making racist, bigoted comments] “So, on that front the man also deserves an epic fail as a human being”.
– ‘Shane’

“Your life is not there to fulfil someone else’s wish list” – Me

“If one person is offended by your post that’s all it takes – to end the freedom of speech we all enjoy. To deny someone the right to show a swastika is to endorse everything the swastika stood for”.
– Matt

“If your picture of God is starting to feel too good to be true, you’re starting to move in the right direction.”
– Greg Boyd

“…it also makes me wonder just how real some people’s faith really is. Maybe there are those who do not actually know the Shepherd’s Voice, for whatever reason, and they are afraid of those who do know that Voice. You see, God is unpredictable, which is a) why they like Him to be shut in a book, and b) why they try to make Him conform to their expectations. Either way, they’re on a losing wicket 😉 ”
– Me

“You cannot offend anyone. People can be offended by what you say. It’s their interpretation, and not your problem”.
– Jan

…and related: ” The difficulty with offence is that it is taken, not given. People choose what they find offensive. That should not be prescribed for them.”
– Gerry

“I think it might be an idea if you re-read what you just wrote, but with your sensible lenses on. And then re-write it using your sensible pen”. – Me

“Loyalty is interesting. It’s actually an emotion. It’s not the same as trust. Trust is calculated and is developed through our powers of reason. We can cultivate trust if, a person is trustworthy. But loyalty is a natural reaction.

“The only people that ask/demand loyalty from you are abusive mates, high-control cults, and manipulative salespeople”.
– Daniel

“Make no mistake – the desire to please God through following rules almost always turns into trying to please men, because in actual fact it’s their rules you end up trying to keep, not God’s”.
– Me

“A God who cannot handle your questions cannot be your answer”.
– Jeff Turner

“I do think that the opposite of love is not hate, but fear”
– David Hayward

“When it becomes clear that your beliefs are keeping you from being better, allow yourself the freedom to become better than your beliefs”.
– Jeff Turner

“If you were going to give the Bible an enema, Numbers is where the tube would go. Or maybe Deuteronomy”. – Me

A Spiritual Smorgasbord

Smorgasbord
noun

– a buffet meal of various hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, salads, casserole dishes, meats, cheeses, etc.

– an extensive array or variety


“[When exhorted to] “read scripture as though my life depends on it”, [let me say that] my life does not depend on scripture … Scripture didn’t create me, die for me, redeem or restore me, Scripture doesn’t love me, or work all things for my good. Jesus, on a cross, reconciling and restoring all creation, not counting our sins against us, is my salvation, my friend, my redemption and lover of my soul.
– Jason Clark

“I got to the point of realizing that the divine plan is for us to eventually want goodness as if NO supreme being/force exists simultaneously knowing that they do. Otherwise, we are coerced and insincere as a result”
– Mike Liao

“…because purpose became more holistic than adding people to the total number of Christians…”
– Tom Boulton

It’s okay to ask questions. The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask.
– Diana

A fool will continue to validate why they are thought a fool to begin with, yet never understand themselves why they are thought of thus.
– Anon

Don’t search Scriptures to find life in Jesus.
Instead, search Jesus to find life in Scriptures.
– Anon

But yes, she is entitled to her opinion, just as I am entitled to reject it, using the same rights she has to assert it, and round and round we go 😉 The minute I take away someone else’s right to hold an opinion, I take away my own right to hold a different opinion.
– Me

ALL Religions come from a presupposition that God doesn’t like you
– Rex Gaskey

Sin doesn’t really exist; The only way sin exists is when you look at the world through the lens of good and evil
– Jamal Jivanjee

Prayer is simply a way to bring one’s being into an awareness of the presence of a God it is never separated from. Pray or don’t pray. Your proximity to God will not change one iota, but your perception of said proximity will.
– Jeff Turner

If Grace means that God is for me, regardless of my faults, then it also means that He is for the other guy too, regardless of his faults. It can be no other way
– Me

The God in Exodus was a reflection of Moses. Nothing more and nothing less.
– Richard Maggio

Revenge is a confession of fear
– Jedi proverb

Next time you’re inclined to label someone a certain way and sum up their substance or lack of it based on a tiny snapshot of their life, stop yourself and remember you haven’t a clue where that person has been before you and they came into contact
– Anon

 

Hors d’Ouvres

More bite-sized wisdom quotes for your delectation…


Real love accepts people as they are, with room for who they may become
– Susan Cottrell

God is love. Don’t consume anything that argues against this
– Barry Smith

The only reason infernalists no longer have to work hard to prove Hell from the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats is that most Fundies already agree with the faulty interpretation that the parable speaks of Hell.
– Me

Live life in such a way that people in every religion thinks you’re going to their version of hell.
– Ron Doerksen

It seems like the legalistic people, the ultra conservatives, the people who believe in the wrapped and labeled boxes of religion, it seems like they believe God wrote everything down that was important, and then died. Well, I think God is a living spirit. All knowing, loving and all seeing. And I believe it is RIGHT to question, to learn, to understand. I don’t think we should be afraid of that. Are we trying to learn what’s true? Or are we trying to pretend we believe things we don’t even understand? Because we’re not going to fool God.
– Dayle

As with everything else in life, you need to learn to see past the perceived offence and find the underlying joke
– Me

“Eternity” is what happens when we choose love in the present
– Jeff Turner

The problem is not with the Bible or whatever, the problem is that humans just have an innate tendency to be really, really stupid
– Jeff Charest

“But there were millions of lives at stake!”
Romulan lives”
“No. Lives!
– Adm. Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek – Picard, Ser 1 Ep. 1, “Remembrance”

Religion was [about] obeying. And really, religion was about obeying religion
– Wendy Francisco

Bottom line is this: If Love keeps no record of wrongs – and that’s what it says right there clear as day and in nice friendly Fundamentalist black and white in your Rulebook – if Love keeps no record of wrongs, what possible basis does god have for sending people to Hell?
– Me

Through the Law man is conscious of sins. Through Jesus Christ the new man is conscious of God. Allow Him to shift your reality.
– Wayne Shelton

Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right
– H. L. Mencken

This may be obvious but I think someone needs to hear this today: You don’t need to be accepted by the Church to be accepted by God.
– Me

I do not see prayer as a practice in which I alter God’s behavior by pleading, begging, or putting in confident requests (not that I do not make requests). Rather, I understand prayer to be a willing and purposeful exposure of oneself to an other-worldly love that, one hundred times out of ten, will regard us and our fellow humans with far more mercy and compassion than we do ourselves when left to our own devices.

To pray is to place one’s heart in the direct path of God’s tornadic love in order that it might contradict our evolved defaults, and awaken us to a love that we would otherwise remain ignorant of and unresponsive to
– Jeff Turner

She’ll probably change her tune. And I don’t want to be there when she plays it
– Anon

Yes, I use both toolkits (faith and reason) in my walk. That’s why I don’t walk with a limp
– Me

I love being wrong. It means I learned something new
– Bob Brow

There is more than one way to interpret Scripture verses. The purpose of Scripture is to lead you to truth Himself, it was never inspired to be the sole source of truth and authority.
– Don Keathley

Our failures elicit the applause of a God who is far more interested in our encouragement than our ability to keep the “rules.”
– Jeff Turner

In response to this:
“This one made me a bit sad: ‘When people go missing from the house of God, they’ve already gone missing from the presence of God’ ”
I said:
“This phrase is just to control those still there. It means, “We have the monopoly on God”. Put like that, it is easy to see how ridiculous it is
– Me

When you have that table prepared in the presence of your enemies – make sure you leave a seat for them. Leave a seat open!
– Derrick Day

‘Not caring’ [about what others think] is the first step on the road to being unaffected by others’ opinions. Like Jesus was. And please be assured that acceptance by God is completely independent of being accepted by churches and, by extension, those who populate them. Your relationship with God is your own; grow it in your own way, not according to the whims of others 🙂
– Me

[Deconstruction] … enabled me to see things more clearly, including Jesus, who was built, for the first time, as the actual foundation of the house, rather than hell. If hell is in there, it’s the foundation. You either have hell hold the house up, or Jesus, but not both
– Wendy Francisco

It’s all or nothing” is the one Christian principle that I’d like to get rid of more than anything! Why has it always been this way? Why do we have to either accept EVERYTHING they teach us, or keep nothing?

Martin Luther was the first person to successfully break out of this. He kept all the parts that rang true with him, and tossed out his list of 95 things that were wrong. He disagreed with the corrupt Christian leadership, but kept Christ.

We can too! 🙂
– Randy Renkenberger

“A mountain is tall but it also has dirt on it”. “A fish swims, but it is also wet.”
Saying God is love, but God is also a just God, is saying that love is inherently unjust. Hmm.

I think this is how I look at it: God is love, and his love includes all the advocacy for our humanity that we will ever need.
– Wendy Francisco

There is no balance in God. The idea that there needs to be is an entirely man-made concept.
– Me

When God tells Adam and Eve they may eat from any tree in the Garden, save the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it’s like saying: literally the whole world can be yours, or you can choose to live a life of judgment.

Choose wisely
– Jeff Turner

From the Menu…

More bite-sized quotations for your upbuilding:


“Religion hates Grace because Grace puts ALL people on the SAME level”
– Cindy DeGroot

“The quickest route to a mediocre life is that of constantly concerning yourself with the opinions of others”.
– Jeff Turner

…and related: “what other people think of me is none of my business.”
– Anon

“Some are so busy desperately seeking their purpose, that their purpose is having a hard time catching them”.
– Jim Potts

“I don’t care how much you screw up. Where sin abounds (whatever your definition of sin) grace abounds all the more! God isn’t running out of patience, love, grace, faith etc. for you. God believes in you and loves you and there ain’t nothing you can do about that”.
– Phil Drysdale

[Said of a Pharisee troll who had got really annoyed with a group of us on Facebook and then disappeared like they always do] “It’s his pets I’m worried about. I do so hope he won’t kick his dog or his cat around the house because of his being in a radge with us…”
– Me

“You are the Crowley to my Aziraphale”
– Ellie

“There are some people who will always find the angry verses in the Bible to confirm their obsession with anger and exclusion”
– Steve Chalke

“To me, the very fact that we can trot out a verse that says one thing, then someone else can come along and counter that with a verse that says the exact opposite, shows me that, despite Evangelical claims to the contrary, the Bible does in fact contradict itself. So, for all those who believe that the Bible is infallible and does not contradict itself, you might want to think twice before contradicting one Scripture passage with another. Otherwise, Foot. Yourself. Shooting. You’re. The. In. Rearrange to find a well-known phrase or expression”.
– Me

“The Old Testament contains an awful lot of violent killing bracketed by “God told me to”. Then along comes Jesus and says, “Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you”. How you deal with this apparent dichotomy goes to the heart of your theology of God”.
– Rob Grayson

“Christianity is an innocence trip, not a guilt trip”.
– Jeff Turner

“Always remain teachable. But let the Holy Spirit lead you as to who should be allowed to teach you”. – Derrick Day

“There seems to be a presumption amongst Fundamentalists that if someone else is happy or, worse, laughing, then there must be some kind of ‘sin’ involved somewhere along the line 😉 ”
– Me

“People who come pre-loaded with an argument rather than interest aren’t ready”
– Dave Carringer

“A Community of believers that actually takes Jesus seriously will never force a person to choose between being honest and being accepted”.
– Jeff Turner

“The Religious of Jesus’ day complained that He was a glutton and a drunkard. Sounds like He was enjoying life pretty much to the full, while at the same time preaching how much God loved people. To me, what they found offensive was that someone could take life so lightly while at the same time taking God so seriously. Religion can’t cope with that”.
– Me

“I’m arriving at a peaceful place that allows another to believe [a doctrine], and graciously not allow them to tell me I must”.
– Matt Merry

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Hell shall not perish…

“Except that that’s not what it says.

“Belief in Jesus is the core of being a Christian, not belief in Hell”.
-Me

“Let’s be clear. When the Bible speaks for example of the word of God that is quick and powerful (Heb 4:12) or the word of God that builds faith (Rom 10:17) it’s not speaking of the book. It is telling us of the word that God speaks to you. What He says to you can change your life in an instant”.
– Don Keathley

“If we think the Love of God must be balanced out by the Holiness of God, then we understand neither one”
– Jeff Doles


Yes, I realise that ‘From the Menu’ means the same as ‘À la carte’, the title I used for my last item of short and edible quotes 😉