β
Falling in love is very real, but I used to shake my head when people talked about soul mates, poor deluded individuals grasping at some supernatural ideal not intended for mortals but sounded pretty in a poetry book. Then, we met, and everything changed, the cynic has become the converted, the sceptic, an ardent zealot.
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E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
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Reason, Observation and Experience β the Holy Trinity of Science β have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect.
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Robert G. Ingersoll (On the Gods and Other Essays)
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Never underestimate a bookworm
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Louisa Klein (Supernatural Freak (Supernatural Freak, #1))
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There is no such thing as magic, supernatural, miracle;
only something that's still beyond logic of the observer.
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Toba Beta (Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza)
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I knew then that I would devote every minute we had left together to making her happy, to repairing the pain I had caused her and returning to her what I never known how to give her. These pages will be our memory until she drows her last breath in my arms and I take her forever and escape at last to a place where neither heaven nor hell will ever be able to find us.
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Carlos Ruiz ZafΓ³n
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We are familiar with people who seek out solitude: penitents, failures, saints, or prophets. They retreat to deserts, preferably, where they live on locusts and honey. Others, however, live in caves or cells on remote islands; some-more spectacularly-squat in cages mounted high atop poles swaying in the breeze. They do this to be nearer God. Their solitude is a self-moritification by which they do penance. They act in the belief that they are living a life pleasing to God. Or they wait months, years, for their solitude to be broken by some divine message that they hope then speedily to broadcast among mankind.
Grenouille's case was nothing of the sort. There was not the least notion of God in his head. He was not doing penance or wating for some supernatural inspiration. He had withdrawn solely for his own pleasure, only to be near to himself. No longer distracted by anything external, he basked in his own existence and found it splendid. He lay in his stony crypt like his own corpse, hardly breathing, his heart hardly beating-and yet lived as intensively and dissolutely as ever a rake lived in the wide world outside.
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Patrick SΓΌskind (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer)
β
Supernatural is a dangerous and difficult word in any of its senses, looser or stricter. But to fairies it can hardly be applied, unless super is taken merely as a superlative prefix. For it is man who is, in contrast to fairies, supernatural; whereas they are natural, far more natural than he. Such is their doom.
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J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien On Fairy-stories)
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4. Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion... shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis as the earth does, should have stopped, should not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile, or death in fureΓ’.
...Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you... In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it... I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost...
[Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, advising him in matters of religion, 1787]
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Thomas Jefferson (Letters of Thomas Jefferson)
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Itβs said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. Thatβs of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, itβs said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance.
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Charles Williams
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The Bible is the Word of God: supernatural in origin, eternal in duration, inexpressible in valor, infinite in scope, regenerative in power, infallible in authority, universal in interest, personal in application, inspired in totality. Read it through, write it down, pray it in, work it out, and then pass it on. Truly it is the Word of God. It brings into man the personality of God; it changes the man until he becomes the epistle of God. It transforms his mind, changes his character, takes him on from grace to grace, and gives him an inheritance in the Spirit. God comes in, dwells in, walks in, talks through, and sups with him.
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Smith Wigglesworth
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A childβs imaginary playmate just might actually be there.
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Doug Dillon
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Dreams link us to those who have already left this life.
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Doug Dillon
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Mmm. Cupcakes.
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Kiersten White (Supernaturally (Paranormalcy, #2))
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Coincidences link us to the unknown and weave us into it.
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Doug Dillon
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Study, along the lines which the theologies have mapped, will never lead us to discovery of the fundamental facts of our existence. That goal must be attained by means of exact science and can only be achieved by such means. The fact that man, for ages, has superstitiously believed in what he calls a God does not prove at all that his theory has been right. There have been many gods β all makeshifts, born of inability to fathom the deep fundamental truth. There must be something at the bottom of existence, and man, in ignorance, being unable to discover what it is through reason, because his reason has been so imperfect, undeveloped, has used, instead, imagination, and created figments, of one kind or another, which, according to the country he was born in, the suggestions of his environment, satisfied him for the time being. Not one of all the gods of all the various theologies has ever really been proved. We accept no ordinary scientific fact without the final proof; why should we, then, be satisfied in this most mighty of all matters, with a mere theory?
Destruction of false theories will not decrease the sum of human happiness in future, any more than it has in the past... The days of miracles have passed. I do not believe, of course, that there was ever any day of actual miracles. I cannot understand that there were ever any miracles at all. My guide must be my reason, and at thought of miracles my reason is rebellious. Personally, I do not believe that Christ laid claim to doing miracles, or asserted that he had miraculous power...
Our intelligence is the aggregate intelligence of the cells which make us up. There is no soul, distinct from mind, and what we speak of as the mind is just the aggregate intelligence of cells. It is fallacious to declare that we have souls apart from animal intelligence, apart from brains. It is the brain that keeps us going. There is nothing beyond that.
Life goes on endlessly, but no more in human beings than in other animals, or, for that matter, than in vegetables. Life, collectively, must be immortal, human beings, individually, cannot be, as I see it, for they are not the individuals β they are mere aggregates of cells.
There is no supernatural. We are continually learning new things. There are powers within us which have not yet been developed and they will develop. We shall learn things of ourselves, which will be full of wonders, but none of them will be beyond the natural.
[Columbian Magazine interview]
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Thomas A. Edison
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The difference between vampires and angels? Angels are real.
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Lisa Grace
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Paranormal events are just edges of the infinite we βhappenβ to encounter.
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Doug Dillon
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There are... otherwise quite decent people who are so dull of nature that they believe that they must attribute the swift flight of fancy to some illness of the psyche, and thus it happens that this or that writer is said to create not other than while imbibing intoxicating drink or that his fantasies are the result of overexcited nerves and resulting fever. But who can fail to know that, while a state of psychical excitement caused by the one or other stimulant may indeed generate some lucky and brilliant ideas, it can never produce a well-founded, substantial work of art that requires the utmost presence of mind.
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E.T.A. Hoffmann (Die Serapions BrΓΌder)
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The physical world we live in is just the beginning.
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Doug Dillon
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I just remember their kindness and goodness to me, and their peacefulness and their utter simplicity. They inspired real reverence, and I think, in a way, they were certainly saints. And they were saints in that most effective and telling way: sanctified by leading ordinary lives in a completely supernatural manner, sanctified by obscurity, by usual skills, by common tasks, by routine, but skills, tasks, routine which received a supernatural form from grace within.
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Thomas Merton (The Seven Storey Mountain)
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Do I have YOUR permission to be a Supernatural God? If I want to open heaven, and in a moment in time, touch the heart of a daughter and supernaturally break all the darkness, shame, and torment in her life, MAY I DO THAT?
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Jim Anderson (Unmasked: Exposing the Cultural Sexual Assualt)
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God first appeared on the scene of human history in the role of a matchmaker. What a profound and exciting revelation!
Is it too much to suggest that Eve came to Adam on the arm of the Lord Himself in the same way that a bride today walks down the aisle of the church on her fatherβs arm? What human mind can fathom the depth of love and joy that filled the heart of the great Creator as He united the man and woman in this first marriage ceremony?
Surely this account is one among countless indications that the Bible is not a work of merely human authorship. Moses is generally accepted as the author of the creation record. But apart from supernatural inspiration, he would never have dared to open human history with a scene of such amazing intimacyβfirst between God and man, and then between man and woman.
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Derek Prince (God Is a Matchmaker)
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Love is soul work. Love can be met and joined with attraction and infatuation and all of that, but love will not fade when those things do. You can choose to close your heart to love, and run away, and avoid it for as long as you can in every way you can think of but if it was really, truly, the other-worldly, almost supernatural kind of love that we can only hope to be graced with at least once in this life experience, it will not leave you. You can love many people, but at the end of the day, the love you need to choose is the love that, even if you close your heart to, still moves you. The love you still write about. The love you canβt face. The love youβre still not okay with losing, that youβre angry about; the love that uprooted your life and contorted your being. The love you ran away from because it showed you who you are without the guise of worth given from someone else. This is love because these are all signs that you are closing your heart and to be doing so, there has to be something going through you for you to be able to close off. Real love will be the love you realize that remains even after you close your heart to it, because it sustains itself. It drives you forward. It brings up all the unhealed parts of you that you have to reconcile.
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Brianna Wiest
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Giving from the heart is supernatural, it manifests into blessings.
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D.A. McBride
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Whatever the circumstances may be, always put the Invisible before the visible, the Supernatural before the natural; if this rule is applied to all your actions, we know that you will be equipped with strength and bathed with deep joy.
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LΓ©on Bloy (Correspondance (1889-1890))
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Other people are only aspects of our own greater being.
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Doug Dillon
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Some ghosts or felt presences may simply be the essence of another living person projected outward while sleeping.
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Doug Dillon
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The strongest distinguishing characteristic of humans is their power of denial. I have strength and long life, you have supernatural abilities, daemons have awe-inspiring creativity. Humans can convince themselves up is down and black is white. Itβs their special gift.
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Deborah Harkness (A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, #1))
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Sometimes you just don't know, what you just don't know until you know it.
If anyone says that meditation and spirituality are weird, tell them the definition of weird is supernatural, and that you'll takes supernatural over mundane any day.
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Martha DuSage
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If you want to access your power as a divine human being, you must search for the small inside of the big and for the big inside of the small. When you look up into the expanse of sky overhead, look for the stars, the planets, the birds that fly. Small things for the eye to spot. And when you look down into the the face of a streetside flower, look for joy, happiness, comfort, stillness, and a silent song. When you have mastered finding the small in the big and the big in the small, you will have mastered your own divinity.
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C. JoyBell C.
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A crazy old lady, leading a band of teenagers against an angry supernatural Entity - whoβda thought?
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Diane M. Haynes
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Pursued by grace and supernatural power from God, I will passionately pursued my most cherished dreams.
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Lailah Gifty Akita
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If you keep the same routine as yesterday, it makes sense that your tomorrow is going to be a lot like your yesterday.
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Joe Dispenza (Becoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon)
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Imagination is center of spiritual force.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
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The power of writing supernaturally set things into motion.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
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Supernatural is spiritual.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
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The circumstances of our lives are pieces of a larger scheme in the puzzle of life, and in His Perfect Wisdom, the pieces fit.
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Renae Jones (Perfect Wisdom)
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Psychic change, as Todorov has recognized, subverted the genre in another way, by revoking the cultural taboos, the social censorship, that had prohibited the overt treatment of psychosexual themes, which then found covert expression in the supernatural tale. 'There is no need today to resort to the devil [or to posthumous reverie] in order to speak of excessive sexual desire, and none to resort to vampires in order to designate the attraction exerted by corpses: psychoanalysis, and the literature which is directly or indirectly inspired by it, deal with these matters in undisguised terms. The themes of fantastic literature have become, literally, the very themes of the psychological investigations of the last fifty years.
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Howard Kerr (The Haunted dusk: American supernatural fiction, 1820-1920)
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Meditation is a mysterious method of self-restoration.
It involves βshuttingβ out the outside world, and by that means sensing the universal βpresenceβ which is, incidentally, absolute perfect peace.
It is basically an existential βtime-outββa way to βcome up for a breath of airβ out of the noisy clutter of the world.
But donβt be afraid, there is nothing arcane or supernatural or creepy about the notion of taking a time-out. Ball players do it. Kids do it, when prompted by their parents. Heck, even your computer does it (and sometimes not when you want it to).
So, why not you?
A meditation can be as simple as taking a series of easy breaths, and slowly, gently counting to ten in your mind.
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Vera Nazarian (The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration)
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The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible.
These beliefs were forcefully articulated by Thomas Paine in Age of Reason, a book that so outraged his contemporaries that he died rejected and despised by the nation that had once revered him as 'the father of the American Revolution.'... Other important founding fathers who espoused Deism were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe.
[The Christian Nation Myth, 1999]
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Farrell Till
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Musicians do not get on stage without hearing the song singing inside of them. Poets do not write as if they are jotting down a sermon, they see everything in their subconscious before presenting it to the conscious, which they later turn toΒ readable materials. Artist do not draw and paint without painting in dream states, trance, or see an art form that others do not see. Being creative does not calls for being any supernatural entity, but in creating with the entities inside of you.
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Michael Bassey Johnson (The Infinity Sign)
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Why cannot human language express human thoughts? And how is it that there is a feeling inspired by the excess of beauty, which laps the heart in a gentle but eager flame, which may inspire virtue and love, but the feeling is far too intense for expression?
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Beyond Frankenstein: The Complete Supernatural Short Fiction)
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...There is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it.'
'What's that supposed to mean?' I asked.
'That the good that will come is not always obvious. Nor easy to see. Nor in the place we would expect to find it. Nor what we personally desire. You should consider that the good being created by the events this night may have nothing to do with the defeat of supernatural evils or endangered lives. It may be something very quiet. Very ordinary.
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Jim Butcher (Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, #8))
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He was lying a hundred and fifty feet below the Earth, inside the loneliest mountain in France - as if in his own grave. Never in his life had he felt so secure, certainly not is his mother's belly. The world could go up in flames out there, but he would not even notice it here. He began to cry softly. He did not know who to thank for such good fortune... We are familiar with people who seek out solitude: penitents, failures, saints, or prophets... Grenouille's case was nothing of the sort. There was not the least notion of God in his head. He was not doing penance nor waiting for some supernatural inspiration. He had withdrawn solely for his own personal pleasure, only to be near to himself. No longer distracted by anything external, he basked in his own existence and found it splendid. He lay in his stony crypt like his own corpse, hardly breathing, his hearty hardly beating - and yet lived as intensively and dissolutely as ever a rake had lived in the wide world outside.
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Patrick SΓΌskind
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Most modern people think of religion as a consolation, but to Epicurus it was the opposite. Supernatural interference with the course of nature seemed to him a source of terror, and immortality fatal to the hope of release from pain. Accordingly he constructed an elaborate doctrine designed to cure men of the beliefs that inspire fear.
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Bertrand Russell (A History of Western Philosophy: And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day)
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Some humans are made to trust in their supernatural Creator(s) to watch over them, make their lives better, protect them from each other, maybe even save them from themselves and their own actionsβ¦
Listen, and listen well to that huge silenced inner voice of yours;
It should be heard along with all the others.
Here is what I heard from mine:
βUntil proof of the existence of a loving Monotheism-presented God or any supernatural Creator, it is man who will watch over man;
We have nobody else
Just us
Just each other.
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Haroutioun Bochnakian (The Human Consensus and The Ultimate Project Of Humanity)
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People look like crazy, they do crazy things and they love their crazy life; stop inspiring them with your supernatural world and let them be who they chose to be.
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M.F. Moonzajer
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Dark perversions grow at the empty corners of the soul.
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Sivan P.L. (The Conductor: Birth Rate: 0)
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The search for the Divine Being is the grace to seek the divine life.
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Lailah Gifty Akita
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In their attempt to fix me, who was not broken, they inevitably did break me
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Holly Knightley (Eye of Athena: A Supernatural Suspense Novel Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe)
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Redemption is won in the light, but is wrought in the darkness.
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Holt Clarke (The Sword of Eden)
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You either WIN or you LEARN. Either way, you WIN!
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Shay Dawkins (iSin: Upgrade To Life Version 2.0 (Clean Version))
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Life is a natural phenomenon β and by mystifying it, one only disgraces its natural beauty.
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Abhijit Naskar (Principia Humanitas (Humanism Series))
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Never forget that time is the most valuable thing we can spend, so don't throw it away!
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Kerry ONeal (What If: An Anthology of Short Stories)
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A wonder came over her as she considered how much further she could grow.
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Kalynn Applewhite (Awakening Anne (The White Crow Series Book 1))
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Is there a better way to spend immortality than to screw with people?
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Reyna Favis (Soul Sign: A Zackie Story of Supernatural Suspense)
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swimming in the ocean leads to the shore, Flying in space leads to the moon,
walking in Life leads to success
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Naimish Gandhi (The Mystical Mark: A supernatural detective story)
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We didn't know how to raise a Heavenly Gifted Child. There was not a book anywhere that told us how to keep her safe from the unknown.
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Sue Quinones (ANGELBABY: A True Story Of Faith, Miracles, And The Supernatural)
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Every Storm is a reminder that from chaos, clarity emerges.
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Zane Zubin (FARLEY STREET: A Supernatural Adventure of Self-Discovery, Cosmic Battles, and Magical Realism)
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I had come to know the singular power of a river advancing toward the open sea and the power of tides regulating that advance. . . . Because I had seen this for the first time over the year, I could not be intimidated by guys who wore expensive shoes and flashy ties. Piedmont could fire me, bawl me out, abuse me, put it on my record that I was an incorrigible son of a bitch, make sure I never taught in South Carolina again, or cut off my teacher's pension. That was all he could do. His power was economic and emotional, not spiritual or supernatural.
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Pat Conroy
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Epicurus founded a school of philosophy which placed great emphasis on the importance of pleasure. "Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life," he asserted, confirming what many had long thought, but philosophers had rarely accepted. Vulgar opinion at once imagined that the pleasure Epicurus had in mind involved a lot of money, sex, drink and debauchery (associations that survive in our use of the word 'Epicurean'). But true Epicureanism was more subtle. Epicurus led a very simple life, because after rational analysis, he had come to some striking conclusions about what actually made life pleasurable - and fortunately for those lacking a large income, it seemed that the essential ingredients of pleasure, however elusive, were not very expensive.
The first ingredient was friendship. 'Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship,' he wrote. So he bought a house near Athens where he lived in the company of congenial souls. The desire for riches should perhaps not always be understood as a simple hunger for a luxurious life, a more important motive might be the wish to be appreciated and treated nicely. We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us. Epicurus, discerning our underlying need, recognised that a handful of true friends could deliver the love and respect that even a fortune may not.
Epicurus and his friends located a second secret of happiness: freedom. In order not to have to work for people they didn't like and answer to potentially humiliating whims, they removed themselves from employment in the commercial world of Athens ('We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics'), and began what could best have been described as a commune, accepting a simpler way of life in exchange for independence. They would have less money, but would never again have to follow the commands of odious superiors.
The third ingredient of happiness was, in Epicurus's view, to lead an examined life. Epicurus was concerned that he and his friends learn to analyse their anxieties about money, illness, death and the supernatural. There are few better remedies for anxiety than thought. In writing a problem down or airing it in conversation we let its essential aspects emerge. And by knowing its character, we remove, if not the problem itself, then its secondary, aggravating characteristics: confusion, displacement, surprise. Wealth is of course unlikely ever to make anyone miserable. But the crux of Epicurus's argument is that if we have money without friends, freedom and an analysed life, we will never be truly happy. And if we have them, but are missing the fortune, we will never be unhappy.
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Alain de Botton
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Now, if the writers of these four books [Gospels] had gone into a court of justice to prove an alibi, (for it is of the nature of an alibi that is here attempted to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead body by supernatural means,) and had they given their evidence in the same contradictory manner as it is here given, they would have been in danger of having their ears cropt for perjury, and would have justly deserved it. Yet this is the evidence, and these are the books, that have been imposed upon the world as being given by divine inspiration, and as the unchangeable word of God.
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Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
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Our task is to take suffering in stride, not as if it is a pleasure (it isnβt), but in the knowledge that God will not let it overwhelm us and that He will use it, by His own supernatural alchemy, to three good ends, at least. 1) Our suffering produces character; 2) Our suffering glorifies God; 3) Suffering fulfills the law of the harvest (John 12:24), Rediscovering Holiness by J.I. Packer, pgs. 232-239.
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J.I. Packer
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No matter what each day brings -- the trials and tribulations that may cross my path, the turmoil, the ugliness -- when I look at this picture I'm reminded that life is precious and there is still beauty in this world.
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Ryan Troske (The Rising (Supernaturals Book 1))
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The supernatural Christ of the New Testament, the god of orthodox Christianity, is dead. But priestcraft lives and conjures up the ghost of this dead god to frighten and enslave the masses of mankind. The name of Christ has caused more persecutions, wars, and miseries than any other name has caused. The darkest wrongs are still inspired by it. The wails of anguish that went up from Kishinev, Odessa, and Bialystok still vibrate in our ears.
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John E. Remsburg (The Christ)
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I signed off with Ricky, and I was putting away my phone when TC slunk past, heading for his spot in the front window.
"Hey, cat," I said. "We're bringing home a friend for you. A doggie big enough to devour you in a single gulp. Is that okay?"
He turned a baleful stare on me, as if he understood. I'm convinced TC isn't just a cat, no more than Lloergan is just a dog. Maybe someday, when I'm moments from perishing at the hands of an intruder, TC will save me in a sudden and awe-inspiring display of supernatural power. Or maybe he'll decide I haven't given him enough tuna that week and leave me to my fate. He's a cat, so I figure my chances are about fifty-fifty.
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Kelley Armstrong (Rituals (Cainsville, #5))
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Exchanging life with Jesus Christ as taught by Jesus and His designated witnesses is not following a set of laws, rules, codes, principles, disciplines, scripts or cookbook formulas in our own power in an attempt to be like Jesus. Exchanging life with Jesus is not us giving imitation performances with our own acting abilities of what we think Jesus would be or do. Exchanging life with Jesus is Jesus giving repeat performances of His life in anyone who allows Jesus to do so. Jesus then lives out the supernatural performance of His Life in and through their lives.
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John David Geib (Beyond Beliefs)
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Satan is an individualist. He upsets the commandments of Heaven which enforce a definite moral conduct. He inspires us with dreams and hopes. He endows us with bitterness and discontent, but in the end he leads us to the Better, and thus mainly serves the Good. He is that 'force that strives for evil yet causes the good.
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Kurt Seligmann (Magic, supernaturalism and religion)
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If we take all possible eventualities into consideration about the creation of our universe, it comes down to three radically different alternatives. First, the universe has been created supernaturally by a divine entity (the theistic principle). Second, everything exists as the result of natural occurrences devoid of any divine, creative, or naturally-inspired organising force (the atheistic principle). Finally, our universe exists because it was created by intelligent beings β most probably, beings similar to us (the anthropic principle). I provisionally believe that the last alternative, given the circumstances in which humanity now finds itself, is the most likely scenario.
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Tony Sunderland (OUR GODLESS UNIVERSE)
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tapping into include inspiration, excitement, enthusiasm, fascination, awe, wonder, appreciation, kindness, abundance, compassion, empowerment, nobility, honor, invincibility, uncompromising will, strength, and freedomβnot to mention divinity itself, being moved by the spirit, trusting in the unknown or in the mystic or the healer within you.
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Joe Dispenza (Becoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon)
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smiling and patting my knee. "When you are a child, you focus on making memories. When you are an adult, you reflect on those memories and learn from your mistakes. Memories also exist to inspire you when you're down, as well as to remind you of all the good that was and can still be in your life. Childhood is a time for growth. You can't crucify yourself for
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Yumoyori Wilson (SSS: Year Two (Supernatural Spy Academy, #2))
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I acknowledge the challenge of believing in a supernatural divinity. After all, in the natural a rock is a rock; a desk is a desk; my skin is my skin. Or are they? That rock you pick up and feel on your skin and place on the desk is 99.9% empty spaceβbetween atoms; as is your skin and the desk. So, perhaps it is our perception of the natural or βrealβ world that needs tweaking, not the supernatural.
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Charles F. Glassman (Brain Drain - The Breakthrough That Will Change Your Life)
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At twenty-one he had arrived in America a penniless bodybuilder, born in an obscure Austrian village, armed only with the immigrant's time-honored weapons of hope, ambition, and an almost supernatural belief in the great American dream.
Now, through the traditional virtues of hard work, talent, charm, intelligence, positive mental attitude, and persistence, Arnold Schwarzenegger had become a household name.
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Wendy Leigh (Arnold: Unauthorized Biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger)
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When the religious Cowper confesses in the opening lines of his address to the famous Yardley oak, that the sense of awe and reverence it inspired in him would have made him bow himself down and worship it but for the happy fact that his mind was illumined with the knowledge of the truth, he is but saying what many feel without in most cases recognizing the emotion for what it isβthe sense of the supernatural in nature.
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William Henry Hudson (Far Away and Long Ago: A History of My Early Life)
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It was in a swampy village on the lagoon river behind the Turner Peninsula that Pollock's first encounter with the Porroh man occurred. The women of that country are famous for their good looks - they are Gallinas with a dash of European blood that dates from the days of Vasco da Gama and the English slave-traders, and the Porroh man, too, was possibly inspired by a faint Caucasian taint in his composition. (It's a curious thing to think that some of us may have distant cousins eating men on Sherboro Island or raiding with the Sofas.) At any rate, the Porroh man stabbed the woman to the heart as though he had been a mere low-class Italian, and very narrowly missed Pollock. But Pollock, using his revolver to parry the lightning stab which was aimed at his deltoid muscle, sent the iron dagger flying, and, firing, hit the man in the hand.
He fired again and missed, knocking a sudden window out of the wall of the hut. The Porroh man stooped in the doorway, glancing under his arm at Pollock. Pollock caught a glimpse of his inverted face in the sunlight, and then the Englishman was alone, sick and trembling with the excitement of the affair, in the twilight of the place. It had all happened in less time than it takes to read about it.
("Pollock And The Porroh Man")
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H.G. Wells (Great Tales of Horror and the Supernatural)
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In the Winchesters and their rebel angel friend Castiel, many fans have found the inspiration and courage to fight monsters and demons that exist in real life.
I also worry when people feel isolated and alone. We all need to feel we belong somewhere; it's left over from the early days of humanity when being being kicked out of the group literally meant you were going to die. When we feel alone, that evolutionary ingrained panic sets in, along with a whopping dose of depression. Fandom, I found, was an antidote.
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Lynn S. Zubernis (Family Don't End with Blood: Cast and Fans on How Supernatural Has Changed Lives)
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Let those souls who think their work has no value recognize that by fulfilling their insignificant tasks out of a love of God, those tasks assume a supernatural worth. The aged who bear the taunts of the young, the sick crucified to their beds, the ignorant immigrant in the steel mill, the street cleaner and the garbage collector, the wardrobe mistress in the theater and the chorus girl who never had a line, the unemployed carpenter and the ash collector β all these will be enthroned above dictators, presidents, kings, and cardinals if a greater love of God inspires their humbler tasks than inspires those who play nobler roles with less love.
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Fulton J. Sheen (The Cries of Jesus From the Cross: A Fulton Sheen Anthology)
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But what I want to know is, what does your view of my father say about you? When someone comes into the world who reaches the worst depths that humans can sink to, we will always call him a monster, or evil, or the embodiment of evil, but there is never any serious hint or suggestion that there is something actually supernatural or otherworldly about this individual. He may be an evil man, but he is just a man. But when our extraordinary person operating on the other side of the spectrum, the good, rises to the surface, like Jesus or Buddha, immediately we elevate him to God, a deity, something divine, supernatural, otherworldly. This is a reflection of how we see ourselves. We have no trouble believing that the worst creature who has done the most harm is a man, but we absolutely cannot believe that the best creature, who tries to inspire imagination, creativity and empathy, can be one of us. We just don't think that highly of ourselves, but we happily think that low.
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Steve Toltz (A Fraction of the Whole)
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human kind to the danger of a painful and comfortless situation. A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which favoured the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition. Some deities of a more recent and fashionable cast might soon have occupied the deserted temples of Jupiter and Apollo, if, in the decisive moment, the wisdom of Providence had not interposed a genuine revelation, fitted to inspire the most rational esteem and conviction, whilst, at the same time, it was adorned with all that could attract the curiosity, the wonder, and the veneration of the people. In their actual disposition, as many were almost disengaged from their artificial prejudices, but equally susceptible and desirous of a devout attachment; an object much less deserving would have been sufficient to fill the vacant place in their hearts, and to gratify the uncertain eagerness of their passions. Those who are inclined to pursue this reflection, instead of viewing with astonishment the rapid progress of Christianity, will perhaps be surprised that its success was not still more rapid and still more universal.
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Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (The Modern Library Collection))
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My best friend and I got the idea about two guys who donβt get along, theyβre at each otherβs throats, but if they donβt keep the business running, theyβre going to end up dead quickly. Plus, thereβs supernatural elements. Weβre excited. Itβs inspired by pulp fiction movies weβve seen as kids. I donβt care if we have a small audience; we just want to have a good time publishing it.
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K. Guillory
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The idea that human-transforming technology that mingles the dna of natural and synthetic beings and merges man with machines could somehow be used or even inspired by evil supernaturalism to foment destruction within the material world is for some people so exotic as to be inconceivable. Yet nothing should be more fundamentally clear, as students of
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Thomas Horn (Forbidden Gates: How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, and Human Enhancement Herald The Dawn Of TechnoDimensional Spiritual Warfare)
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An extraordinary man is too simple.
A supernatural man is too realistic.
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Nassr
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We are like the grass, which grows the more luxuriantly the oftener it is mown. The blood of Christians is the seed of Christianity. Your philosophers taught men to despise pain and death by words; but how few their converts compared with those of the Christians, who teach by example! The very obstinacy for which you upbraid us is the great propagator of our doctrines. For who can behold it, and not inquire into the nature of that faith which inspires such supernatural courage? Who can inquire into that faith, and not embrace it, and not desire himself to undergo the same sufferings in order that he may thus secure a participation in the fullness of divine favour?2
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Dallas Willard (The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives)
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Creeds serve a useful purpose. They distill important, albeit carefully selected, theological ideas. But they are not inspired. They are no substitute for the biblical text.
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Michael S. Heiser (The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible)
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Favor is a special status or privilege that could granted to someone, You can call it supernatural fragrance that attracts unsolicited help.
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Damola Treasure Okenla
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But biblical theology does not derive from the church fathers. It derives from the biblical text, framed in its own context. Scholars agree that the Second Temple Jewish literature that influenced Peter and Jude shows intimate familiarity with the original Mesopotamian context of Genesis 6:1β4.17 For the person who considers the Old and New Testament to be equally inspired, interpreting Genesis 6:1β4 βin contextβ means analyzing it in light of its Mesopotamian background as well as 2 Peter and Jude, whose content utilizes supernatural interpretations from Jewish
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Michael S. Heiser (The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible)
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When the Holy Spirit moves, there is Supernatural Accomplishment
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Samuel Asumadu-Sarkodie
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St. John would say that the natural working of the faculties is not adequate to attain to union with God, and the beginner is drawn to spiritual exercises as much by the satisfaction as by any purely spiritual motives. For the psychologist, even while he is refraining from making any judgment about the religious object, is often painfully aware that if interior experiences are viewed as if they had nothing to do with the overall dynamics of the psyche, then their recipient runs the risk of damaging his psychic balance. If temptations must be seen only as the direct working of the devil and inspirations and revelations the direct working of the Holy Spirit, then the totality of the psyche and the flow of its energy will be misunderstood.
The biggest danger to the beginner experiencing sensible fervor, or any other tangible phenomenon, is that they will equate their experience purely and simply with union with God. The very combination of genuine spiritual gifts and how these graces work through the psyche creates a sense of conviction that this, indeed, is the work of God, but this conviction is often extended to deny the human dimension as if any participation by the psyche is a denial of divine origin. The beginner, then, can become impervious to psychological and spiritual advice. The sense of consolation, the feeling of completion, the visions seen, or the voices heard, the tongue spoken, or the healings witnessed, are all identified with the exclusive direct action of God as if there were no psyche that received and conditioned these inspirations. This same attitude is then carried over into daily life and how God's action is viewed in this world. If God is so immediately present, miracles must be taking place daily. God must be intervening day-by-day, even in the minor mundane affairs of the recipients of His Spirit. This does not mean that genuine miracles do not take place, nor that genuine inspirations do not play a role in daily life, but rather, if we believe that they are conceptually distinguishable from the ordinary working of consciousness, we run the risk of identifying God's action with our own perceptions, feelings and emotions. The initial conversion state, precisely because of the degree of emotional energy it is charged with, is often clung to as if the intensity of this energy is a guarantee of its spiritual character.
As beginners under the vital force of these tangible experiences we take up an attitude of inner expectancy. We look to a realm beyond the arena of the ego and assume that what transpires there is supernatural. We reach and grasp for interior messages. Thus arises a real danger of misinterpreting what we perceive. What Jung says about the inability to discern between God and the unconscious at the level of empirical experience is verified here. We run the risk of confusing the spiritual with the psychic, our own perceptions with God Himself. An even greater danger is that we will erect this kind of knowledge into a whole theology of the spiritual life, and thus judge our progress by the presence of these phenomena.
βThe same problem can arise in a completely different context, which could be called a pseudo-Jungian Christianity. In it the realities of the psyche which Jung described are identified with the Christian faith. Thus, at one stroke a vivid sense of experience, even mysticism, if you will, arises. The numinous experience of the unconscious becomes equivalent to the workings of the Holy Spirit. Dreams and the psychological events that take place during the process of individuation are taken for the stages of the life of prayer and the ascent of the soul to God by faith. But this mysticism is no more to be identified with St. John's than the previous one of visions and revelations.
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James Arraj (St. John of the Cross and Dr. C.G. Jung: Christian Mysticism in the Light of Jungian Psychology)
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What ancient idol worshippers believed was that the objects they made were inhabited by their gods. This is why they performed ceremonies to βopen the mouthβ of the statue.13 The mouth (and nostrils) had to be ritually opened for the spirit of the deity to move in and occupy, a notion inspired by the idea that one needs to breathe to live. The idol first had to be animated with the very real spiritual presence of the deity. Once that was done, the entity was localized for worship and bargaining.
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Michael S. Heiser (The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible)
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I was 29 years of age and that was the first time I had experienced true love. Even the love of a Father!
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Raynetta D. Bradley (Journey To Peace And Love: Experiencing Peace And Love In A World Of Chaos)
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Obedience can cost you your life or give you life, you choose
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Raynetta D. Bradley (Journey To Peace And Love: Experiencing Peace And Love In A World Of Chaos)
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Consider that words are of the supernatural sort, other- worldly, yet not; gifted to us by some divine spirit, maybe; ever-changing, not ours, simply floating in us and around us, shaping our world and each other, but still shaped by our own innate, internal passions and energy β our blood!
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James Dowd (Write Dumb: Writing Better By Thinking Less)
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Maybe someday, when Iβm moments from perishing at the hands of an intruder, TC will save me in a sudden and awe-inspiring display of supernatural power. Or maybe heβll decide I havenβt given him enough tuna that week and leave me to my fate. Heβs a cat, so I figure my chances are about fifty-fifty.
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Kelley Armstrong (Rituals (Cainsville, #5))
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They say, scientists are the new priests. Well, most priests leave things to god - we don't - we are gods. And not just us scientists - every human who takes responsibility for their society, is a living god. Even a priest can be god - those rare few who inspire their parishioners to be god-like rather than god-fearing. Whether you believe in the supernatural, that's irrelevant. The question is, are you mindful of your duties to the natural world?
The difference between creator and creation is in responsibility. The creator takes responsibility, the creation delegates it. What are you?
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Abhijit Naskar (Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science)
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If you want a spectacle of something spectacular, have Faith. You will have a supernatural encounter.
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Gift Gugu Mona (The Essence of Faith: Daily Inspirational Quotes)
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From this standpoint, the whole study of Christian theology, biblical, historical and systematic, is the exploring of a three-tier hierarchy of models: first, the 'control' models given in Scripture (God, Son of God, kingdom of God, word of God, love of God, glory of God, body of Christ, justification, adoption, redemption, new birth and so forth β in short, all the concepts analysed in Kittel's great WΓΆrterbuch and its many epigoni) next, dogmatic models which the church crystallized out to define and defend the faith (homoousion, Trinity, nature, hypostatic union, double procession, sacrament, supernatural, etc. β in short, all the concepts usually dealt with in doctrinal textbooks); finally, interpretive models lying between Scripture and defined dogma which particular theologians and theological schools developed for stating the faith to contemporaries (penal substitution, verbal inspiration, divinization, Barth's 'Nihil' β das Nichtige β and many more).
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J.I. Packer (The Logic of Penal Substitution)
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he was so astounded by the beauty and complexity of the universe itself, that he saw no need to go seeking gods or goddesses to explain it. His philosophy was that no concept of a creator or overseer could possibly match the awe-inspiring grandeur of nature itself. This is the way the Pagan atheist views the world, and the universe at large. Itβs not some dry, clinical and bitter philosophy. Itβs a vibrant, dynamic view of life and the environment that births and sustains it. In fact, many Pagans view the universe as a sort of living organismβeither metaphorically or in actual terms. The parallels are, indeed, fascinating. And, in fact, many Pagans believe that the distinction between natural and supernatural is a false oneβthat nature is the totality of all there is, and that itβs meaningless to speak of anything being somehow outside of nature.
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John Halstead (Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-theistic Pagans)
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This means that you might not need a pharmacy or an exogenous substance to heal youβyou have the power from within to up-regulate the genes that make IgA within a few days. Something as simple as moving into an elevated state of joy, love, inspiration, or gratitude for five to ten minutes a day can produce significant epigenetic changes in your health and body.
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Joe Dispenza (Becoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon)
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Every time, I am lost and said a little prayer, I divine force, reach out to help me find my way.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
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A moment of silence settled over all of them. Then Velva broke it. βWe are the hunter and the haunter, the haunted and hunted.β¦β
βBut for what purpose?β asked Sir Sun.
βIt is all for the same purpose, Timothy.Β The empty that wish to be full.
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Mav Skye (Wanted: Single Rose)