“Immediate luminousness, in short, philosophical reasonableness and moral helpfulness are the only available criteria. Saint Teresa might have had the nervous system of the placidest cow, and it would not now save her theology, if the trial of the theology by these other tests should show it to be contemptible. And conversely if her theology can stand these other tests, it will make no difference how hysterical or nervously off balance Saint Teresa may have been when she was with us here below.”
Lecture I, "Religion and Neurology"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
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William James 246
American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist 1842–1910Related quotes

Source: In Praise of Philosophy (1963), p. 44

"God bless atheism" (3 August 2007) http://youtube.com/watch?v=y4mWiqkGy-Y
2007

Political Theology (1922), Preface to Second Edition (1934)

“What theology that would have been, a god self-worshipping, a drug addicted to itself.”
Source: Embassytown (2011), Chapter 18 (p. 239)

“I blame that cow Mother Teresa”
Hamish and Andy (Radio Show).

Jean-Louis Murat, 2004 http://www.theguardian.com/football/2004/apr/04/sport.features

Therefore, a saint is Lactantius, who denied the rotundity of the earth; a saint is Augustine, who, admitting the rotundity, yet denied the antipodes; worthy of sainthood is the dutiful performance of moderns who, admitting the meagreness of the earth, yet deny its motion. But truth is more saintly for me, who demonstrate by philosophy, without violating my due respect for the doctors of the church, that the earth is both round and inhabited at the antipodes, and of the most despicable size, and finally is moved among the stars.
Vol. III, p. 156
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)