“I had the image of a spiritual person, but I was bowing down to the idols of religiosity and philosophy.”

—  Donald Miller , book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I had the image of a spiritual person, but I was bowing down to the idols of religiosity and philosophy." by Donald Miller?
Donald Miller photo
Donald Miller 108
American writer 1971

Related quotes

Bob Dylan photo

“Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Dylan Revisited http://europe.newsweek.com/dylan-revisited-174056?rm=eu, Newsweek (1997)

Clark Ashton Smith photo

“Bow down, I am the emperor of dreams.”

Clark Ashton Smith (1893–1961) American author

Source: The Last Oblivion: Best Fantastic Poetry of Clark Ashton Smith

Bell Hooks photo

“I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

“To glorify man in his natural and unmodified self is no less surely, even if less obviously, idolatry than actually to bow down before a graven image.”

Irving Babbitt (1865–1933) American academic and literary criticism

Source: "English and the Discipline of Ideas" (1920), p. 67

Maimónides photo

“After a long time the great and awful Name was forgotten and the people, men, women and children, only recognized an image of wood or stone and the temple of wood or stone which they had been brought up from infancy to serve by bowing down.”

Maimónides book Mishneh Torah

“Idolatry,” H. Russell, trans. (1983), p. 72
Mishneh Torah (c. 1180)

Francis Xavier photo

“Following the baptisms, the new Christians return to their homes and come back with their wives and families to be in their turn prepared for baptism. After all had been baptised, I order that the temples of the false Gods be pulled down and idols broken. I know not how to describe in words the joy I feel before the spectacle of pulling down and destroying the idols by the very people who formerly worshipped them.”

Francis Xavier (1506–1552) Navarrese Basque Roman Catholic saint and missionary

Letter dated February 8, 1545, to the Society of Jesus. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (1985). St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission.

Marshall McLuhan photo

“The sculptural qualities of the image dim down the purely personal identity.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 369

Tupac Shakur photo

“I think I'm a natural-born leader. I know how to bow down to authority if it's authority that I respect.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor
Lance Armstrong photo

“I wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organized religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs.”

Lance Armstrong book It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

Source: It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life (2000), p. 113
Context: I wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organized religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsiblity to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking, and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptized. If there was indeed a God at the end of my days, I hoped he didn't say, "But you were never a Christian, so you're going the other way from heaven." If so, I was going to reply, "You know what? You're right. Fine."

Jahangir photo

“I am here led to relate that at the city of Banaras a temple had been erected by Rajah Maun Singh, which cost him the sum of nearly thirty-six laks of five methkally ashrefies. The principle idol in this temple had on its head a tiara or cap, enriched with jewels to the amount of three laks ashrefies. He had placed in this temple moreover, as the associates and ministering servants of the principal idol, four other images of solid gold, each crowned with a tiara, in the like manner enriched with precious stones. It was the belief of these Jehennemites that a dead Hindu, provided when alive he had been a worshipper, when laid before this idol would be restored to life. As I could not possibly give credit to such a pretence, I employed a confidential person to ascertain the truth; and, as I justly supposed, the whole was detected to be an impudent imposture. Of this discovery I availed myself, and I made it my plea for throwing down the temple which was the scene of this imposture and on the spot, with the very same materials, I erected the great mosque, because the very name of Islam was proscribed at Banaras, and with God's blessing it is my design, if I live, to fill it full with true believers.”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) , Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, translated into English by Major David Price, Calcutta, 1906. pp. 24-25.

http://persian.packhum.org/persian/pf?file=11001040&ct=7, "Decisions Involving Urban Planning and Religious Institutions" Different translation: I made it my plea for throwing down the temple which was the scene of this imposture; and on the spot, with the very same materials, I erected the great mosque, because the very name of Islam was proscribed at Banaras, and with God’s blessing it is my design, if I live, to fill it full with true believers.

Related topics