“Pleasure” is different from “happiness”. It has its own definition. Pleasure may or may not come from hard work; Pleasure may or may not come from sin; However, happiness is always divine and comes from fulfillment!”
[T]he concern of man is not his future but his present, not the world but his soul. We must be just, we must strive, we must engage ourselves with the business of the world for our own sake, because through that, and through contemplation in equal measure, our soul is purified and brought closer to the divine. ... Thought and deed conjoined are crucial. ... The attempt must be made; the outcome is irrelevant. Right action is a pale material reflection of the divine, but reflection it is, nonetheless. Define your goal and exert reason to accomplish it by virtuous action; successs or failure is secondary.
“[T]he concern of man is not his future but his present, not the world but his soul. We must be just, we must strive, we must engage ourselves with the business of the world for our own sake, because through that, and through contemplation in equal measure, our soul is purified and brought closer to the divine. ... Thought and deed conjoined are crucial. ... The attempt must be made; the outcome is irrelevant. Right action is a pale material reflection of the divine, but reflection it is, nonetheless. Define your goal and exert reason to accomplish it by virtuous action; successs or failure is secondary.”
“Part of the function of icons is for private devotional purposes. Early in the church's history, icons made it easier for worshipers to understand biblical themes and stories, as they could not read. Icons also create an atmosphere that enhances the worship and act as constant reminders of the divine.”
“The principles of genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations, are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. The man, therefore, who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that Book may be accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer.”
“We had a great festival. We opened with a ritual to elevate our consciousness to understand how to create world peace. The ceremonies were to pray for peace, harmony, and prosperity for all by the blessings of the Divine Mother, especially for those in harm's way.”
Broken Wind believed that we are traumatized as babies by intestinal gas or colic. The great shaman invented a technique called "gastral projection" to help release these traumas. His philosophy was simple: "To air is human ... but to really cut one loose is divine.
Neither novels or their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.
A ‘complete man’ has a regret that he cannot bear a baby; whereas it is rather ironic that a self-styled ‘complete woman’ takes pride in denouncing that divine blessing. In fact, there is nothing like a ‘complete man’, only woman can be ‘complete’!
It is a better world. A place where we ate responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and becauseit is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.