Here is a selection of independent quotations from books I am reading. I hope they offer as much food for thought for you as they have for me!

“If skeptics were as skeptical of their religious doubts as they are towards religious belief, then they wouldn’t be a skeptic. How could they? Their skeptical assumptions are unable to pass their own standards. Therefore, it is no more narrow-minded to claim that one truth is right than it is to claim that one way to think about all truth is right. The truth is, the skeptic’s position is just as exclusive and narrow as the religious positions they criticize.” (Broom, Without God, 53)

“The world may or may not need another cookbook, but it needs all the lovers— amateurs—it can get. It is a gorgeous old place, full of clownish graces and beautiful drolleries, and it has enough textures, tastes, and smells to keep us intrigued for more time than we have. Unfortunately, however, our response to its loveliness is not always delight: It is, far more often than it should be, boredom. And that is not only odd, it is tragic; for boredom is not neutral—it is the fertilizing principle of unloveliness.” (Capon, Supper of the Lamb, 3)

“Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God—experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused.” (Lewis, Mere Christianity, 154)