“There have been men before … who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God himself… as if the good Lord had nothing to do but to exist. There have been some who were so preoccupied with spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ.”

— Clive Staples Lewis , book The Great Divorce

Source: The Great Divorce (1944–1945), Ch. 9

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Clive Staples Lewis 272

Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist 1898–1963

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“There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

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Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook L (1793-1796)

“The nearer any soul draws to God, the more humble will that soul lie before God…the most holy men have always been the most humble men…If the work be good, though never so low, humility will put a hand to it; so will not pride.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

“What was was ever, and ever shall be. For, if it had come into being, it needs must have been nothing before it came into being. Now, if it were nothing, in no wise could anything have arisen out of nothing.”

Melissus of Samos (-470–-430 BC) Eleatic philosopher

Fragments of Melissus's On Nature, Fragment 1

“Christianity is not a highly complicated collection of so many dogmas that it is impossible for anyone to know them all; it is not something exclusively for academicians who can study these things, but it is something simple: God exists and God is close in Jesus Christ.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

remarks http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2007/july/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070724_clero-cadore_en.html at Auronzo di Cadore (24 July 2007)
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“I do not say that this is true in every case, but I do say that if priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrificed to God. Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, and it always so happened that God wanted what his agents liked.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

A Christmas Sermon (1890)
Context: Back of all these superstitions you will find some self-interest. I do not say that this is true in every case, but I do say that if priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrificed to God. Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, and it always so happened that God wanted what his agents liked. Now, I will not say that all priests have been priests “for revenue only,” but I must say that the history of the world tends to show that the sacerdotal class prefer revenue without religion to religion without revenue.

“God only, however, selects a tyrant for a people that deserves to be oppressed. At that time, the Lord of the world establishes over them a tyrant who will avenge those who had been oppressed and brutalized. Such have been some among the temporal rulers. At that time, the Lord of the world places over such a people a tyrant. so that they might avenge those wronged.”

Subh-i-Azal (1831–1912) Persian religious leader

in such a way that the despot does not realize that he is aiding his Lord and avenging the blood of the oppressed upon those who had tormented them. This is apparent today, and in some stations it is being implemented. Know for a certainty that the Lord of the world without any doubt knows the tyrant from the good monarch. Rather, everything he does is for the sake of some wisdom, and he knows more about the final outcome of such matters.
Treatise on Kingship

“In Spain there are countless thousands of mothers like yourself who never had a fair shake in life. Their whole existence has been one of trying to get enough food to stay alive for another day. One day these people did something about that. They got together and elected a government that really gave some meaning to their lives and promised to make it so that the millions of mothers like you would never again have to bend their knees and beg to exist in a world that had plenty for everyone.”

Bill Bailey (Spanish Civil War veteran) (1910–1995) American labor activist

The Kid from Hoboken: An Autobiography by Bill Bailey (1993)

“Thank goodness there were people who were happy with nothing, thought Julia, so that people like her (and everyone else she had ever met), could have more.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

At Last, Chapter 7

“Element had an existence from the time he [God] had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end.... [T]he mind of man — the immortal spirit. Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so: the very idea lessens man in my estimation. I do not believe the doctrine; I know better. Hear it, all ye ends of the world; for God has told me so... We say that God himself is a self-existent being. Who told you so? It is correct enough; but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? Man does exist upon the same principles. God made a tabernacle and put a spirit into it, and it became a living soul.... The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is [co-eternal] with God himself. I know that my testimony is true... Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. That is good logic. That which has a beginning may have an end. There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are [co-eternal] with our Father in heaven.... I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man—the immortal part, because it has no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; then it has a beginning and an end; but join it again, and it continues one eternal round. So with the spirit of man. As the Lord liveth, if it had a beginning, it will have an end. All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation, who say that the spirit of man had a beginning, prove that it must have an end; and if that doctrine is true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the house-tops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 6:308-309 (7 April 1844)
1840s, King Follett discourse (1844)

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