Christianity

"Jehovah and the Christian version of God brought about a direct conflict between the so-called forces of good and the so-called forces of evil by largely cutting out all of the intermediary gods, and therefore destroying the subtle psychological give-and-take that occurred between them – among them – and polarizing man's own view of his inner psychological reality."

"In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress!"

"Give Him thanks, all ye His works so wondrous! Sing His honor, sing His glory, bless and magnify His Name! Jehovah's praise endures forevermore, Amen, Amen!"

"What a joy it is to know that Jehovah cares for the spiritual needs of all his people—even those on isolated islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! Yes, as the psalmist says, "Jehovah has become King! Let the earth be joyful. Let the many islands rejoice" [Psalms 97:1]."

"And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God who sits on the throne and said: "Amen! Praise Jah!" Also, a voice came from the throne and said: "Be praising our God, all you his slaves, who fear him, the small ones and the great.""

"O the depth of God's riches and wisdom and knowledge! How unsearchable his judgments are and beyond tracing out his ways are! For "who has come to know Jehovah's mind, or who has become his adviser?" Or, "who has first given to him, so that it must be repaid to him?" Because from him and by him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen."

"Jehovah, the Creator of the extremities of the earth, is a God to time indefinite. He does not tire out or grow weary. There is no searching out of his understanding."

"The one showing favor to the lowly is lending to Jehovah, And He will repay him for what he does."

"The name of Jehovah is a strong tower. Into it the righteous runs and is given protection."

"He will guard the way of his loyal ones."

"He is a shield for those walking in integrity."

"If you like, your Jehovah may reign in heaven, but here upon earth it is we who rule! We'll show you who will endure longer, you or we!"

"The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge. Wisdom and discipline are what mere fools have despised."

"O Jehovah, you have searched through me, and you know [me]. You yourself have come to know my sitting down and my rising up. You have considered my thought from far off."

"Jehovah is compassionate and merciful, Slow to anger and great in loyal love. [Teth] Jehovah is good to all, And his mercy is evident in all his works. [Yod]"

"Jehovah is merciful and compassionate, Slow to anger and abundant in loyal love. He will not always find fault, Nor will he stay resentful forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor has he repaid us what our errors deserve. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So great is his loyal love toward those who fear him. As far off as the sunrise is from the sunset, So far off from us he has put our transgressions. As a father shows mercy to his sons, Jehovah has shown mercy to those who fear him. For he well knows how we are formed, Remembering that we are dust."

"Jehovah has become King ... He sits enthroned above the cherubs."

"For you, O Jehovah, are the Most High over all the earth; You are exalted far above all other gods."

"Anyone dwelling in the secret place of the Most High Will lodge under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to Jehovah: "You are my refuge and my stronghold, My God in whom I trust.""

"For you, O Jehovah, are good and ready to forgive; You abound in loyal love for all those who call on you."

"That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth."

"If YHWH promised a holy land to his chosen people, they should expect more damnation than paradise. That would be consistent with the Bible's blood-stained stories, and that's the way we've always seen it on the news in my country."

"Jehovah will rule as king forever and ever."

"My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning."

"Therefore say to the house of Israel, "This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says: 'Not for your sakes am I acting, O house of Israel, but for my holy name, which you profaned among the nations where you have gone.'" "I will certainly sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the nations, which you profaned among them; and the nations will have to know that I am Jehovah," declares the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, "when I am sanctified among you before their eyes.""

"I, Jehovah, am searching the heart,"

"are my witnesses," is the utterance of Jehovah, "and I am God."

"An object that has no will of its own, capable, if need be, of opposing its creator, and with no qualities other than its creator’s, such an object has no independent existence and is incapable of ethical decision…. Therefore Lucifer was perhaps the one who best understood the divine will struggling to create a world and who carried out that will most faithfully. For, by rebelling against God, he became the active principle of a creation which opposed to God a counter-will of its own."

"They date from the Medieval age, the period of mental obscuration, during which most of the present prejudices and superstitions have been forcibly inoculated on the human mind...So deeply rooted, indeed, is this preconception and aversion to the name of Lucifer--meaning no worse than "light-bringer" (from lux, lucis, "light," and ferre "to bring"), It was Gregory the Great who was the first to apply this passage of Isaiah, "How art thou fallen from Heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning," etc., to Satan, ever since the bold metaphor of the prophet, which referred, after all, but to an Assyrian King inimical to the Israelites, has been applied to the Devil." ] --even among the educated classes, that by adopting it for the title of their magazine the editors have the prospect of a long strife with public prejudice before them. So absurd and ridiculous is that prejudice, indeed, that no one has seemed to ever ask himself the question, how came Satan to be called a light-bringer, unless the silvery rays of the morning-star can in any way be made suggestive of the glare of the infernal flames."

""Lucifer," is the pale morning-star, the precursor of the full blaze of the noon-day sun--the "Eosphoros" of the Greeks. It shines timidly at dawn to gather forces and dazzle the eye after sunset as its own brother "Hesperos"--the radiant evening star, or the planet Venus... Piously inclined readers may argue that "Lucifer" is accepted by all the churches as one of the many names of the Devil. According to Milton's superb fiction, Lucifer is Satan, the "rebellious" angel, the enemy of God and man. If one analyzes his rebellion, however, it will be found of no worse nature than an assertion of free-will and independent thought, as if Lucifer had been born in the XIXth century. This epithet of "rebellious" is a theological calumny, on a par with that other slander of God by the Predestinarians, one that makes of deity an "Almighty" fiend worse than the "rebellious" Spirit himself; "an omnipotent Devil desiring to be 'complimented' as all merciful when he is exerting the most fiendish cruelty," as put by J. Cotter Morison. Both the foreordaining and predestining fiend-God, and his subordinate agent are of human invention; they are two of the most morally repulsive and horrible theological dogmas that the nightmares of light-hating monks have ever evolved out of their unclean fancies."

"Lucifer began, mythologically, as a heavenly detective. He was the lawyer retained by the gods for the suppression of vice; and, from long engaging in that business, he came to love it. When he had nobody to accuse, he was in distress, and went about accusing innocent people. So he was called the Accuser. And then he fell lower still, and went about tempting people to sin, in order that he might prosecute them; and then he was called Satan. That was the course of the first Vice Society, and the end of its attorney."

"Gluttony would prevent any of us from being interested in philosophy and culture, as a result of being incapable of attending to the most divine part of us."

"Unless ye fast from the world, ye shall not find the Sovereignty; unless ye keep the entire week as Sabbath, ye shall not behold the Father."

"But this kind (demon) does not go out except by prayer and fasting"

"When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

"Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He had fasted forty days and forty nights."

"God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men. . .. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess."

"Is this the fast I have chosen? A day for a person to afflict the soul, to bow the head like a reed and be covered in sackcloth and ashes—Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Eternal? Is not this the fast I have chosen: To loosen the chains of evil, to undo the bonds of oppression, to free the oppressed, to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into your home? When you see the naked, clothe him and from your own flesh never hide. Then shall your light burst out like the dawn..."

"Even now - declares the LORD - return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments."

"So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and He answered our prayer."

"So what happens when we stop eating? The body first uses up the glycogen stores in the liver. That might take 12 hours, or 24 hours. Afterwards, the body will have to use proteins (muscles) or lipids (fats) to produce the energy (glucose) it needs. The body is programmed to avoid breaking down muscle, and so the liver turns into a factory to manufacture ketones for fuel... But you don’t need to buy anything; just stop eating and your body will do the work for you... Sick cells, old cells, decomposed tissues, are burned away. This is the ultimate spring clean. It allows the body to eliminate toxins and metabolic waste at the same time as turning them into heat and energy... Next, the body will go for its fat reserves. Most of us have plenty of fat for the body to get busy on – and belly fat is an easy target... the process of ketosis is more than the body eating itself. While fasting, the body goes into repair mode... There is an impressive documentary available on YouTube called The Science of Fasting...the problem: fasting is free. Well, it’s not free, because you need to be medically supervised, at least to begin with, but there’s no money in it for Big Pharma."

"It’s important to say that fasting is not starvation. The anxiety and fear that attend lack of food in critical circumstances of famine or enforced deprivation are not present if you are fasting voluntarily. Nor are you beating up your body to get it in line. You are in control, but this is a partnership – your body and you. When I began reading about fasting, before it was my turn to try it, I found that religious visionaries such as St John of the Cross, St Augustine, Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich all recommended fasting as a way to clear the head and concentrate. Gandhi fasted in order to focus his mind. Pythagoras refused to accept anyone into his school who did not know how to fast."

"I found that religious visionaries such as St John of the Cross, St Augustine, Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich all recommended fasting as a way to clear the head and concentrate. Gandhi fasted in order to focus his mind. Pythagoras refused to accept anyone into his school who did not know how to fast. The Greeks intrigued me. Our religions are imports from the east where ascetic practice is normal, so I would expect to find a tradition of fasting there, but the Greeks were rationalists, the founders of western medicine. But here are Plato and Socrates fasting for mental efficiency, Plutarch advocating a day of fasting for any minor disorder, and Hippocrates saying that “to eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness”."

"... For the next week-end ... I ordained for myself a fast on lines ; that is, no food of any kind and only water to drink. Realising the probability and also the inadvisability of hoarding my fæces for the prescribed three days, I took a grain of grey powder on the Friday night and a dose of on the following morning. Then I fasted, secundem artem, until Tuesday morning. On Saturday I felt well but I am told that my conversation was terse in matter and staccato in manner. On Sunday I felt very well, and endured my trial in the spirit of a Christian martyr. I was resigned. On Monday I felt very well indeed, and did my work at home and at the hospital with zest and vigour. ... Since that time, now many years ago, I have frequently repeated the experience, and always with the same result. The first day, craving ; the second, resignation ; the third, rejoicing and rejuvenescence. The result is that I can cordially recommend the exercise to anyone who is obliged to lead a sedentary life."

"I think that fasting is not only a religious rite, but also a symbol of human rights, as there are many places in the world that are going through rough times, and fasting shows our devotion."

"Fasting possesses great power. If practiced with the right intention, it makes one a friend of God."

"They took all my drugs and threw them away and put me to bed to start my fast. I never dreamt I would go without food so long, but my fast lasted for 21 days on just distilled water. It is during the fast that conditions a person may have, but is not yet aware of, show up, as the body begins throwing off the poisons."

"Since the days of Jesus Christ, who fasted for 40 days, men and women have abstained from food for many reasons; for health, for political ends, an for spiritual enlightenment. However, the average person, not familiar with fasting, believes he will certainly die if he misses a meal... Most people in fairly good health can go for many days without food but the body must have water. Missing a meal won’t hurt!"

"I have not only found good health, but perfect health; I have found a new state of being, a potentiality of life; a sense of lightness and cleanness and joyfulness, such as I did not know could exist in the human body."

"Fasting kills the desire of the self and the appetite of greed, and from it comes purity of the heart, purification of the limbs, cultivation of the inner and the outer being, thankfulness for blessings, charity to the poor, increase of humble supplication, humility, weeping and most of the ways of seeking refuge in Allah."