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“The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.”
― Robert Green Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. IV

“Truth changes with the season of our emotions. It is the shadow that moves with the phases of our inner sun. When the nights falls, only our perception can guess where it hides in the dark. Within every solar system of the soul lies a plan of what truth is--- the design God has created, in our own unique story. This is as varying as the constellations, and as turning as the tide. It is not one truth we live to, but many. If we ever hope to determine if there is such a thing as truth, apart from cultural and personal preferences, we must acknowledge that we are then aiming to discover something greater than ourselves, something that transcends culture and individual inclinations. Some say that we must look beyond ourselves and outside of ourselves. However, we don’t need to look farther than what is already in each other. If there was any great plan from a higher power it is a simplistic, repetitious theme found in all religions; the basic core importance to unity comes from shared theological and humanistic virtues. Beyond the synagogue, mosques, temples, churches, missionary work, church positions and religious rituals comes a simple “message of truthâ€� found in all of us, that binds theology---holistic virtues combined with purpose is the foundation of spiritual evolution. The diversity among us all is not divided truth, but the opportunity for unity through these shared values. Truth is the framework and roadmap of positive virtues. It unifies diversity when we choose to see it and use it. It is simple message often lost among the rituals, cultural traditions and socializing that goes on behind the chapel doors of any religion or spiritual theology. As we fight among ourselves about what religion, culture or race is right, we often lose site of the simple message any great orator has whispered through time----a simplistic story explaining the importance of virtues, which magically reemphasizes the importance of loving one another through service.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Jesus never expected us simply to turn the other cheek, go the second mile, bless those who persecute us, give unto them that ask, and so forth. These responses, generally and rightly understood to be characteristic of Christlikeness, were put forth by him as illustrative of what might be expected of a new kind of person â€� one who intelligently and steadfastly seeks, above all else, to live within the rule of God and be possessed by the kind of righteousness that God himself has, as Matthew 6:33 portrays. Instead, Jesus did invite people to follow him into that sort of life from which behavior such as loving one’s enemies will seem like the only sensible and happy thing to do. For a person living that life, the hard thing to do would be to hate the enemy, to turn the supplicant away, or to curse the curserâ€� True Christlikeness, true companionship with Christ, comes at the point where it is hard not to respond as he would.”
― Dallas Willard

“People who profess to have no faith, do not actually have no faith. They simply do not have faith as defined by the rest of the people. Many people who do not have faith as defined by the restâ€� do have a faith in many other good thingsâ€� honesty, dedication, inner strength, and so on and so forth. And if you ask him (or her) why do they abide by these beliefs if there be no external force to damn them if they do not abide, they will answer and say, that it is because it is who they are, it is what they believe in, and that to them any other way is abominable. He (or she) does have a faith. It is just not expressed on one of the main paths of expression that most of the population walk on. They are just different in their faith, that is all. Religion should be rightly termed "The love of the beautiful." For anyone who has a true love and devotion to what is beautiful, does have a faith. That is his faith, that is his religion.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“A man's religion is the chief fact with regard to him... By religion I do not mean here the church-creed which he professes, the articles of faith which he will sign... We see men of all kinds of professed creeds attain to almost all degrees of worth or worthlessness under each or any of them... but the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest. That is his religion.”
― Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes Hero Worship and the Heroic in History

“If my friend asks me to sit in a temple belonging to a God that I do not know, because he needs a friend to sit with him, I will be happy to sit there in the foreign temple. Because the temple itself is an outer container only. What is the true religion? What is the inner oil contained by that outer container? The inner oil is the friendship I share with my friend. The true religion is being there to sit beside my friend. If I cannot do this for my friend, then how am I worthy to sit in any temple, whether belonging to a God that I know or to a God that I don't know? If there is no inner oil within my soul, I do not deserve to sit in any temple. Religion is the friendship within the heart, not the place where we sit on a holy day. Religion is the oil within the lamp, not the metal container we see as the lamp.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Many people are willing to learn techniques that help them live their lives. But the person who seeks to confirm their life at its roots by reaching beyond technique to the fundamentals—to true religion—is exceedingly rare. I find this state of affairs most regrettable. That is why I can’t help but urge you to refrain from evaluating your daily life on the basis of what you think you know, on the basis of collected data.”
― Soko Morinaga, Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity

“In the sixteenth century the unity of western European Christendom had been shattered by the rise of Protestantism in its various strands (Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican). While the state was regarded as part of the body of Christ, the concept of sharing a political community with those of differing doctrinal commitments was unthinkable. And so it remained at first. Protestant reformers and their Catholic adversaries all insisted that one of the main aims of government was to maintain "true religion." They disagreed, of course. as to which brand of Christianity was true. Thus European history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries became a chronicle of civil war, of massacre, and of the expulsion of religious minorities. The notion of religious toleration grew less out of any particular brand of Christianity than out of the fear and frustration of protracted civil war. (p. 24)”
― Jerry Z. Muller, The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought

“If one religion were 'true,' we would expect to see, even if only once in all of recorded history, a religious missionary that had stumbled upon a culture that shared the same revelations â€� brought forth by the same deity.”
― David G. McAfee

“Religion is for those who are without the pure knowledge of the Almighty true God- Jehovah the Creator of the Heavens and the earth..it is also for those who are ignorant of the fact of who God is and are neither founded in Him nor allign themselves to His righteous standards...but are lovers of sins and every acts and pleasures that does not glorify Him. Christianity is not a religion and will never be. It is a relationship consisting of our being in unity with Jesus Christ and with others...tuned and under the banner of Christ-likeness, upholding justice and righteousness.”
― Taitusi Williams Savou

“Christians know by experience that true religion is a union of the soul with God, a real participation in the divine nature, the very image of God drawn upon the soul, or, in the apostle's phrase, "it is Christ formed within us".”
― Henry Scougal, Life of God in the Soul of Man

“[Love, basically, is love of God]: a delightful and affectionate sense of the divine perfections, which makes the soul resign and sacrifice itself wholly unto him, desiring above all things to please him, and delighting in nothing so much as in fellowship and communion with him, and being ready to do or suffer anything for his sake, or at his pleasure ... A soul thus possessed with divine love must needs be enlarged towards all mankind ... this is ... charity ... under which all parts of justice, all the duties we owe to our neighbour, are eminently comprehended; for he who doth truly love all the world ... so far from wrongdoing or injuring any person ... will resent any evil that befalls others, as if it happened to himself.”
― Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man

“True religion is that which does not let you stumble.”
― Dada Bhagwan

“The existence of true religion is predicated on the practice of goodness. Goodness is Godliness. There is nothing else. Religion lies in practice, not in bookish theories.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“In religion, when is it considered that 'One has Known'? When not only does the adverse internal state of being that hurts oneself and others (raudradhyan) not arise, but also the slightest resultant effect of raudradhyan does not arise, to the extent that one does not even come across such a circumstance!”
― Dada Bhagwan, Simple & Effective Science for Self Realization

“People want to pick one or the other: but Christianity is both spiritual and religious. You need the Holy Spirit to apply sound doctrine.”
― Criss Jami

“[Purity is] a due abstractedness from the body and mastery over the inferior appetites ... such a temper and disposition of mind as makes a man despise and abstain from all pleasures and delights of sense or fancy which are sinful in themselves, or tend to ... lessen our relish of more divine and intellectual [he means, God-centred and rational] pleasures, which doth also infer a resoluteness to undergo all those hardships he may meet with in the performance of his duty: so that not only chastity and temperance, but also Christian courage and magnanimity may come under this head.”
― Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man

“[Humility means] a deep sense of our own meanness, with a hearty [sincere (Johnson)] and affectionate [strongly moved; warm; zealous (Johnson)] acknowledgment of our owing all that we are to the divine bounty [generosity; liberality; munificence (Johnson)]; which is always accompanied with a profound submission to the will of God, and great deadness to the glory of the world, and the applause of men.”
― Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man

“Humans have fashioned the relationship with God into a vertical pattern, in adherance to their desire for hierarchy. The higher on this vertical pattern they perceive themselves to be, the better they feel they are in comparison to others. But they have lost before they have even begun! For the relationship with God is a horizontal pattern, not a vertical one. The only true religion is what manifests in how we treat our fellow people, animals, and the world we have been gifted with. The only relationship with God is born in our relationship with what is horizontal, what is parallel, to us.”
― C. JoyBell C.