Quotes About Religion

"Your religion now cannot be a religion of one world alone or for one people alone. It will have to be a Greater Community religion - God of the Universe, a spirituality of the Universe."

“Do not think that religion in this world is a big mistake. It is actually the only thing that humanity has to offer the Greater Community at this point.”

"All religions were initiated by God and then corrupted by people."

Many Pathways of Redemption

"The New Message has been sent to teach that all the religions were initiated by God, that all religions were changed by people, that God has created many pathways of redemption to meet the different needs and temperaments of people living at different times and in different cultures and that humanity should never assume God’s will or proclaim that their religion alone is the only religion. For God has created many pathways of redemption."

Reformation of Religion

"The New Message from God transcends ideology. This transcends the controversies regarding these things because this is a new message from God for the redemption and preparation of the whole world for a reality and a future that will be very different from the past. Only God can provide such a thing, for even at this moment religions are divided even within themselves. They are contentions, unable to address adequately the great, rising global problems that will overtake humanity in the future if it is unprepared. Arguing over who has the best religion or the most astounding founder can only harm humanity now. It is divisive and exclusive to do this. It adds to the dilemma and the fracturing of the human family. God knows better and the one chosen to bring the Revelation is the perfect one."

The lifeblood of religion

"Keeping religion alive in the world, despite its errors, took tremendous giving. You see, religion dies the minute after it is born. It is something that spoils very quickly and must be reborn every minute. If it is allowed to die, it becomes merely another thought system, a constraint now and not an apparatus for freedom. It must be renewed. What renews religion in the world is Knowledge, this quality of giving where individuals render their lives naturally. They infuse so much life into the idea of God that God comes alive. Without this infusion, God is dead. When people say, 'God is dead,' they say that because God has become merely an idea. The life of God is dissipated. Then someone comes along and gives his or her life and that is God. And you say, 'Oh, my. That is God!'"

“The Way of Knowledge, which is at the heart of all the world’s religions, must become its essential teaching, instead of a focus for clerics and monastics and exceptional individuals only. This is the challenge before you, or religion will be part of the problem for humanity and not its essential means of reconciliation, inspiration and a high ethical awareness. Let this be your understanding.”

“God does not need your belief. God does not need your worship. God does not need to be celebrated. God needs to be followed. You follow God most profoundly, most purely, not by believing in the edicts of religion necessarily, but by building your connection to Knowledge. If religion is functioning correctly, it is helping you to build a bridge to Knowledge, to your own conscience and to live responsibly, ethically and beneficially, both for yourself and for others.”

“Whether you are religious or not, whether you believe in a religious teaching and adhere to that teaching, or whether you claim to have no religious affiliation, your progress is entirely dependent upon your connection to Knowledge.”

“The deeper recognition happens beyond the realm of the intellect. You may create ideas and evaluations of these experiences to your benefit, perhaps, but the experience itself is happening at a deeper level. It is getting to this deeper level that represents the focus of religion and spiritual practice in all of its forms.”

"God has planted Knowledge within every person as the seed and source of their redemption. Redemption will not occur because you believe in a great saint or a great Messenger. Redemption will not even occur if you believe in God or practice a religion faithfully, for you are still lost in the mind, the worldly mind. Your attempt at religion is an escape from the world, a desperate attempt to have purpose and meaning in your life that transcends the hard realities that you see all around you."

"There is a great difference between the manifestation of religion—and all of its great edifices and pronouncements, its admonitions, its ideology, its cosmology, its theology—and the Mystery that lives within each person, waiting to be discovered."

Quotes About the True Purpose of Religion

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Quotes About the Abuse of Religion

"It does not matter that the theologians came and constructed wonderful belief systems for their own survival. It does not matter that the thought system that was a result of that giving calcified and became a restraint for people.That always happens.When Knowledge disappears, thought begins.When people can’t know, they invent things to give themselves temporary stability to allay their own anxiety."

"It is as if the unreligious have taken over the business of religion for their own purposes. Never having realized its essential purpose and meaning, they have turned it into something else. It is like now a political party, and of course religion has political aims as well. This is so far apart from God’s initial impulse and intention for religion—to keep Knowledge alive in the world, to teach The Way of Knowledge, to encourage human responsibility and ethical behavior, not simply as a prescript or as a requirement for admission into Heaven or some other exalted future state."

“Religious tyranny will become very evident in the world in the years to come. This is the result of people holding to an absolute idea in a relative reality. It will breed violence and hatred—everything that is counterproductive.”

“So you have a world that is religious, but knows not of religion. You have a world where religious institutions and their advocates clash and compete with one another, not realizing that the Source of their faith is the same. They will have people demanding and expecting adherence to ideas and beliefs and admonitions, but who themselves have never received the real initiation into the mystery and the power of the Presence.”

“Religion has become concrete. It has become political. It has become an economic and social power that seeks to preserve its status and its power at whatever cost. So those who are truly responding to religion’s true purpose now find themselves in exile, now find themselves heretics and visionaries, following the Mystery—a Mystery that has been lost to so many in the religious orders and institutions. It is as if religion has become the enemy of what religion is really for. It is now the religion of the state, religion of tradition, religion of history, religion of fixed ideas, fixed beliefs and exclusive claims of authority. So far this is from the desire and intent of the Creator to keep Knowledge alive in the world.”

"Religion has become a palliative. It has become a distraction more than an illumination. It has become something that people [use to] run away from the world to seek comfort and consolation instead of a preparation to engage in the world in a greater and more profound way."

"When people say, 'The last thing the world needs is a new religion!' you may say, 'What the world needs is a New Revelation, a clarification, a pure message unclouded by human interpretation and human error. Humanity needs a greater inspiration and a greater strength, and that is why the New Message is here.'"

"Those who would take up the sword in the name of God or for political advantage will have failed their mission and calling in life, and they will lead others to failure as well. Within this failure, there will be no peace and no resolution, for they will have denied the Knowledge of God within themselves. They will have denied the Plan of the Creator for humanity. They will have turned themselves against the greater wisdom that God has placed within them and within all hearts. They will have, through ignorance and arrogance and vanity, destroyed their great opportunity to make a real contribution to their people, to their nation and to the world."

The end of provincial religion

"How can you have a personal religion, like you have in the world, without God being localized? In the Greater Community, then, God is Knowledge."

"You cannot claim your religion is the only religion or the great religion or the last religion or the final religion, for this is to claim that you know God’s Plan and Purpose now and into the future, and no one on Earth, no one in the physical universe, can make such a claim."

"The theologies and philosophies upon which each religion is built must be adaptable and responsive to a growing panorama of life and to a changing set of circumstances that represent the evolution of a race."

Lifespans of Religions

"Old religions will have to expand and adapt or they will die out."

"Religions have life spans. This is true throughout the Greater Community. Religions have life spans because they serve eras of development. Then they are either replaced or they change and expand in order to adapt. If they cannot adapt, they will be replaced because the reality of life will make their teaching and their emphasis less and less relevant and meaningful. In the Greater Community, religions are initiated, they reach a maturity and then they enter old age where they die off. Out of their old age a new impetus, a new meaning and a new message can be given to restore and to renew the race’s spiritual vitality and to give this vitality an immediate relevancy to life as it is expanding and developing."

Religious leadership and education

"What essentially is the role of religious leaders in nearly all situations is to be providers and maintainers."

"Even amongst the religious, there are few who know the power and presence that God has placed within them, and that is why the saints and the mystics throughout time have been persecuted by the clerics—those who are people of the word and the law, but not people of the Spirit and the Mystery."

Religion & Spirituality is a sign of great promise in the Greater Community

Quotes About World Religions

"The old religions, if they are held in contempt of one another, have really become obsolete and will become increasingly so in the future. Now you must see Jesus within the Greater Community and Muhammad and the Buddha and all the great saints and emissaries in a larger context, in a greater series of Revelations..."

"Many will find their purpose in the traditions of the world, for there is much wisdom and value there. However, many will not find their purpose there because their preparation has to do with the future specifically, and they must learn a new way. They must receive a new testament, and they must prepare for a new experience."

"All the religions, though they compete with one another, though they demean one another, and though they may proclaim that they themselves are the one true faith, have in fact and in reality been initiated by God. God has given rise to them all. Like many rivers flowing into the sea, they are meant to nourish all the lands and all the peoples of the world. Only one who is truly mature in their own faith can see this. Otherwise, they feel they must defend their faith against other faiths, setting in motion competition, denial, criticism, hatred and mistrust. Certainly this has happened in all cases. But the truth remains that God created all the religions. And they are all meant to serve in bringing the Divine presence, will and purpose into the minds and the hearts of people everywhere—in different cultures, in different climates, to people with very different social patterns and behaviors in all the eras of history."

"All the religious traditions of the world ... have a contribution to make. They are all important. One is not greater than another. To think like this is not to understand the Will of Heaven, for it is only a united humanity that will be able to contend with the challenges of living in a new world and with the greater challenges of preserving your freedom and sovereignty amidst the presence of greater forces in the universe."

"There are many people in the world today who know they must prepare for something, who feel called to a greater participation, who have a sense that their life is more important than the mundane activities of the day. Some will not find their way in the religious traditions of the world because they are being prepared and called for something new in the world. They are more connected to the future than the past, and the future is calling them and pulling them forward."

Quotes About Religion and the Intervention

"This Group Mind process of course is being used throughout the world in leadership circles in government and religion and commerce, but rarely is Knowledge their guide, and rarely do they employ seers. Humanity just has not reached this level of sophistication yet. So regarding your position in the Greater Community, humanity is at a disadvantage here. Its strength, your strength, is that religion has been kept alive in the world. The recognition of God’s power and presence is honored and recognized by many, whereas in most nations in this region of space, religion has either become worship of the state or has disappeared altogether. Here you have an advantage because even the ancient pathways of religion offer the experience of Knowledge. Perhaps this is not emphasized. Perhaps this is not specified in the Teachings, but the individual is encouraged to have a relationship with the Divine and to be responsive to the Divine in most situations."

"Having no religion of their own, [the Intervention] will use yours to engender their own values."

Religion and the Greater Community

"This message is destined to reach people who have a greater spiritual affinity. Therefore, it is necessary that we elaborate on this subject. We advocate a spirituality that is taught in the Greater Community, not the spirituality that is governed by nations, governments or political alliances, but a natural spirituality - the ability to know, to see and to act."

“Thinking that your religion is the one true religion will stand in the way of your redemption. Condemning other nations, peoples and religions will prevent you from receiving this redemption. Being self-righteous and the defender of your faith will blind you, and you will turn your back to God.”

"God does not care what religion you belong to. God is not attached to the theology of any religion, for in the universe there are countless religions. God will respond to the turning of your life, to the opening of your heart, to the emerging need of the soul, the deepest need you have, which is the need to fulfill your purpose as the means of reconciliation".

“Here you must realize that God has initiated all the world’s religions, and they have all been changed by people, even radically changed. To correct the errors of the past, to renew the true faith and to bring forth the great truth of the ancient religions in their pure form, God has sent a New Revelation into the world, not to replace the religions of the world, but to clarify them and to give them new strength and power and a greater unity with one another.

"Here a Christian must become a Christian with a Greater Community awareness. A Muslim becomes a Muslim with a Greater Community awareness. A Buddhist and a Jew gain a greater panorama of life to which their religious teachings must become relevant. If religion in the world is to educate and to enlighten, it must have this greater capacity and awareness."

"The free nations in this part of the universe seek to promote freedom wherever they can. They view your world as showing great promise because spirituality and religion have not been destroyed or forgotten here. They see that the power of Knowledge, the greater spiritual power, is still alive in individuals, despite humanity’s grave mistakes and foolish activities."

References

Greater Community Spirituality, the New Message book of theology.

See also

The world's religions

Separation of Church and State

The purpose of religion