Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a...

Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.

Heresy,” by the way, simply means “choice.” It came to mean “thoughtcrime,” implying it was blasphemy to presume to choose your own belief instead of swallowing what the bishops spoonfed you.

I will admit that we as young rebels always wanted fundamentalists to understand our take on their religion, but rarely, if ever, the other way around. The fundamentalists are the real artists. If you saw...

Truth is rarely simple and seldom obvious, which is why mature institutions recognise the importance of conflict and disagreement. Christianity was born in conflict, and it has been characterised by conflict ever since. The Church’s...

The huge modern heresy is to alter the human soul to fit modern social conditions, instead of altering modern social conditions to fit the human soul.

If we have no heretics we must invent them, for heresy is essential to health and growth.

Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious,...

Nobody wanted to hear about all the Preterite, the many God passes over when he chooses a few for salvation. William argued holiness for these “second Sheep,” without whom there’d be no elect. You can...

Some people’s theologies come across as blatantly wrong when weighed against what is revealed in Scripture. However God has mercy on those who may be wrong but genuinely seek understanding before seeking themselves.

The administration has said some things in this that six months ago would have been heresy.

The moderns say we must not punish heretics. My only doubt is whether we have the right to punish anybody else.

The flame will cool tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow (in the Book of Genesis days are equal to years, ages). But someone must see this already today, and speak heretically today about tomorrow. Heretics...

The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central...

The Devil answer’d: bray a fool in a morter with wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him; if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the...

Shaikh Ahmad of Sirhind (1563-1624) discussed it within the canon of theological tradition and held that ana al-haqq was a situational statement and that it represented a quality of authentic experience. The Shaikh suggested that...

In choosing a hypothesis there is no virtue in being timid. I clearly would have been burned at the stake in another age.

The word ‘heresy’ not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word ‘orthodoxy’ not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong.

Tomorrow”)

Actually, it meant a great deal: a very great deal. You don’t have to believe that God exists to see that a story in which God takes on human form is a very different story...

The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded...

I myself have read the writings and teachings of the heretics, polluting my soul for a while with their abominable notions, though deriving this benefit: I was able to refute them for myself and loathe...

History warns us … that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.

The Holy Spirit did not go into such detail about the Pharisees in the New Testament just so we could understand a group unique to the first century. Pharisaism is a poisonous weed that grows...

Sometimes painfully lost people can teach us lessons that we didn’t think we needed to know, or be reminded of—the more history changes, the more it stays the same.

This may be heresy to admit, but it’s the record.

You heard him say it? ‘Pain’s the only evil I know about.’ You heard that?”The monk nodded solemnly.”And that society is the only thing that determines whether an act is wrong or not? That too?””Yes.””Dearest...

One century’s saint is the next century’s heretic … and one century’s heretic is the next century’s saint. It is as well to think long and calmly before affixing either name to any man.

If the Pentateuch is inspired, the civilization of of our day is a mistake and crime. There should be no political liberty. Heresy should be trodden out beneath the bigot’s brutal feet. Husbands should divorce...

Brand-new truths are probably not Truths.

Heresy is usually quite sophisticated, actually has a meaning, and is to be taken very seriously. It is therefore to be carefully distinguished from turgid, pretentious, badly-written Bullsgeshichte, to use the technical German theological term.

But why do some people support [the heretics]?” “Because it serves their purposes, which concern the faith rarely, and more often the conquest of power.” “Is that why the church of Rome accuses all its...

I network like a Spanish Inquisitor. I am very good at extracting relevant information. And if you resist, you’ll only confirm your heresy.

If the Pentateuch be true, religious persecution is a duty. The dungeons of the Inquisition were temples, and the clank of every chain upon the limbs of heresy was music in the ear of God....

Authority in science exists to be questioned, since heresy is the spring from which new ideas flow.

All right, so you believe in Santa Claus, and I’ll believe in the ‘Great Pumpkin.’ The way I see it, it doesn’t matter what you believe just so you’re sincere! (Linus)

Scratch the heresy and you will find the leper. Every battle against heresy wants only this: to keep the leper as he is.

Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.

The doctrine of eternal punishment is in perfect harmony with the savagery of the men who made the orthodox creeds. It is in harmony with torture, with flaying alive, and with burnings. The men who...

I may err but I am not a heretic, for the first has to do with the mind and the second with the will!

[Giordano] Bruno died, despised and suffering, after eight years of agony. From that moment, his works have attracted interest, and he has long been recognized as an important figure in the development of modern thought....

…there is found a third level of religious experience, even if it is seldom found in a pure form. I will call it the cosmic religious sense. This is hard to make clear to those...

I await your sentence with less fear than you pass it. The time will come when all will see what I see.

I used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. But I never appreciated it. I did not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion, until I saw...

Ximinez: Now, old woman — you are accused of heresy on three counts — heresy by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed, and heresy by action — *four* counts. Do you confess?Wilde: I don’t...

In time, Mr Hall, one gets to recognize that sneer, that hardness, for fornication extends far beyond the actual deed. Were it a deed only, I for one would not hold it anathema. But when...

The faith a movement proclaims doesn’t count: what counts is the hope it offers. All heresies are the banner of a reality, an exclusion. Scratch the heresy and you will find the leper. Every battle...

Maybe you who condemn me are in greater fear than I who am condemned.

Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. Heresy is the last and best thought. It is the perpetual New World, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all...

Secularization—that is, the gradual conformity of our thinking, beliefs, commitments, and practices to the pattern of this fading age—is not just something that happens to the church; it is something that happens in the church....