“The problem with Christian belief--I mean real Christian belief, the belief that there is a God and a devil and a heaven and a hell--is that it is not a fashionable thing to believe.”
Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)
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Donald Miller108
American writer 1971Related quotes
Albert Nolan (1934) South African priest and activist
Source: Jesus Before Christianity: The Gospel of Liberation (1976), p. 46.
Bertrand Russell book Why I Am Not a Christian
What is a Christian? https://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html (1927) <br class="br">1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”
Eric Hoffer book The True Believer
Section 65, Ch.14 Unifying Agents
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
“This belief had survived in early Christianity, although with other symbols.”
Albert Hofmann (1906–2008) Swiss chemist
LSD : My Problem Child (1980)
Context: The cultural-historical meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries, their influence on European intellectual history, can scarcely be overestimated. Here suffering humankind found a cure for its rational, objective, cleft intellect, in a mystical totality experience, that let it believe in immortality, in an everlasting existence.
This belief had survived in early Christianity, although with other symbols. It is found as a promise, even in particular passages of the Gospels, most clearly in the Gospel according to John, as in Chapter 14:16-20. Jesus speaks to his disciples, as he takes leave of them:
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Will Durant book The Story of Civilization
Source: The Story of Civilization (1935–1975), III - Caesar and Christ (1944), Chapter 28, Part 5 (Footnote 2)
William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 364.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
Orthodoxy (1884)
Context: The church must not abandon its belief in devils. Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell. Throw away a belief in the devil, and most of the miracles of the New Testament become impossible, even if we admit the supernatural. If there is no devil, who was the original tempter in the garden of Eden? If there is no hell, from what are we saved; to what purpose is the atonement? Upon the obverse of the Christian shield is God, upon the reverse, the devil. No devil, no hell. No hell, no atonement. No atonement, no preaching, no gospel.