"...we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: We only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough . . . . These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water."
G.K. Chesterton
"Religion is not the place where the problem of man's egotism is automatically solved. Rather, it is there that the ultimate battle between human pride and God's grace takes place. Human pride may win the battle, and then religion can and does become one more instrument of human sin. But if there the self does meet God and His grace, and so surrenders to something beyond its self-interest, then Christian faith can prove to be the needed and rare release from human self-concern."
Langdon Brown Gilkey
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/bernie-sanders-chris-van-hollen-russell-vought/529614/
Reposting a quote shared by my friend, Matt:
“The ultimate lesson is that science isn’t special – at least not anymore. Maybe back when Einstein talked to Niels Bohr, and there were only a few dozen important workers in every field. But there are now three million researchers in America. It’s no longer a calling, it’s a career. Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other. Its practitioners aren’t saints, they’re human beings, and they do what human beings do – lie, cheat, steal from one another, sue, hide data, fake data, overstate their own importance and denigrate opposing views unfairly. That’s human nature. It isn’t going to change”
― Michael Crichton, Next
Our collective refusal to acknowledge the need for the governance and control of the flow of individuals across borders will lead, inexorably, to the governance and control of the flow of thoughts and words between individuals.
Sometimes I like to sum up my "good" deeds and view them as the cause of my blessings. This is folly. Even my best actions are marked with a tinge of selfishness. If it's good, it's grace, and my motivation to do good should be gratitude towards Him, not pride.
