It is sometimes said that Christianity has always had its own form of psychoanalysis in the practice of confession.... It is true ...that a skilled confessor will compel the penitent to examine his mind more carefully and honestly than he has been doing, but he still works only on the conscious level. The psychoanalyst, on the other hand, tries to pierce through the conscious level to penetrate and expose the unconscious, and he works chiefly there. He does not call on the patient's willpower, but endeavors to get him to relax, making much more use of the patient's imagination. Further, he is not concerned with passing moral judgments on his patient's behavior or, at any rate directly, with strengthening him morally.... He tries to clear away the rubbish that is choking the spring of life and is not concerned with what happens to the stream when he has restored the flow. The confessor on the other hand is pre-occupied with directing the flow into the right channels.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Christianity came into existence to lighten the heart, but now it needs to burden the heart to start with so it can lighten it aft...erwards. Consequently, it will perish.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion--or a new form of Christianity--based on faith in financial mi...racles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Christianity has operated with an unmitigated arrogance and cruelty--necessarily, since a religion ordinarily imposes on those who... have discovered the true faith the spiritual duty of liberating the infidels.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a proces...s of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To me it seems the man can see neither deep nor far, who is not sensible of his own misery, sinfulness, and dependence; who doth n...ot perceive, that this present world is not designed or adapted to make rational souls happy; who would not be glad of getting into a better state, and who would not be overjoyed to find, that the road leading thither was the love of God and man, the practising every virtue, the living reasonably while we are here upon earth, proportioning our esteem to the value of things, and so using this world as not to abuse it, for this is what Christianity requires.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »