Any inspiring God or religion quotes/stories/poems?

"I find in the universe so many forms of order, organization, system, law, and adjustment of means to ends, that I believe in a cosmic intelligence, and I conceive God as the life, mind, order, and law of the world.

I do not understand my God, and I find in nature and history many instances of apparent evil, disorder, cruelty, and aimlessness. But I realize that I see these with a very limited vision, and that they might appear quite otherwise from a cosmic point of view. How can an infinitesimal part of the universe understand the whole? We are drops of water trying to understand the sea.

I believe that I am the product of a natural evolution. The logic of evolution seems to compel determinism, but I cannot overcome my direct consciousness of a limited freedom of will.

I believe that if I could see any form of matter from within, as I can see myself through introspection, I should find in all forms of matter something akin to what in ourselves is mind and freedom.

I define virtue as any quality that makes for survival, but as the survival of the group is more important than the survival of the average individual, the highest virtues are those that make for group survival—love, sympathy, kindliness, cooperation. If my life lived up to my ideals I would combine the ethics of Confucius and Christ—the virtues of a developing individual with those of the member of a group.

I was a Socialist in my youth and sympathized with the Soviet regime until I visited Russia in 1932; what I saw there led me to deprecate the extension of that system to any other land. Experience and history have taught me the instinctive bases and economic necessity of competition and private property.

I am not so fanatical a worshiper of liberty as some of my radical or conservative friends. When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship. We have too much economic liberty in the later nineteenth century, due to our free land and our relative exemption from external danger. We have too much moral liberty today, due to increasing wealth and diminishing religious belief. The age of liberty is ending, under the pressure of external dangers; the freedom of the part varies with the security of the whole.

I do not resent the conflicts and difficulties of life. In my case, they have been far outweighed by good fortune, reasonable health, loyal friends, and a happy family life. I have met so many good people that I have almost lost my faith in the wickedness of mankind.

I suspect when I die I shall be dead. I would look upon endless existence as a curse—as did the Flying Dutchman and the Wandering Jew. Death is life’s greatest invention, perpetually replacing the worn with the new. And after twenty volumes, it will be sweet to sleep."

Will Durant was a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and philosopher. He spent nearly 50 years writing his 11-volume work “The History of Civilization.” Many of his later works were written in collaboration with his wife, Ariel. Durant received the Presidential Medial of Freedom in 1977.

This is a prayer from the movie, 'Boondock Saints' and it is beautiful.

'And Shepherds we shall be,

For thee, my Lord, for thee.

Power hath descended forth from Thy hand

Our feet may swiftly carry out Thy commands

So we shall flow a river forth to Thee

And teeming with souls shall it ever be.

In Nomine Patri et Fili Spiritus Sancti'

Last line translates to, 'In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit.' in Latin.

ALSO.

There is a poem by Mevlana Rumi, which, when translated, reads as follows in English.

"If we come to sleep

we are His drowsy ones.

and if we come to wake,

we are in His hands.

If we come to weeping

we are His clouds full of raindrops.

and if we come to laughing,

we are His lightning in that moment.

if we come to anger and battle,

we are the reflection of His wrath.

and if we come to peace and pardon,

it is the refection of His love.

Who are we in this complicated world?"

This sounds beautiful read in Farsi (Arabic)

"All nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them [the people] from one another as a shepherd separates his sheep from the goats. And He will cause the sheep to stand at His right hand, but the goats at His left. Then the King will say to those at His right hand, Come, you blessed of My Father [you favored of God and appointed to eternal salvation], inherit (receive as your own) the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you brought Me together with yourselves and welcomed Me and entertained and lodged Me, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me with help and ministering care, I was in prison and you came to see Me.

Then the just and upright will answer Him, Lord, when did we see You hungry and give You food, or thirsty and gave You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcomed and entertained You, or naked and clothed You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and came to visit You?

And the King will reply to them, Truly I tell you, in so far as you did it for one of the least [in the estimation of men] of these My brethren, you did it for Me." Matt. 25:32-40, Ampl. Bible

I took a dump yesterday. I wiped my anus, and the doodoo stain on the toilet paper was in the shape of a cross. Coincidence? Tune in tonight at 6 to find out. Here's Tom with your local weather.

I don't like Green Eggs and Ham, Sam I am

"lol kill gay people", Deuteronomy