Religion and Hate

15 Feb

Here is a fabulous quote, so relevant to our current situation in the world.

I had been doing a lot of reading and thinking about the relationship of religion and violence, hatred, and all that.

Then, during a boring meeting I was reading my notes from a great lecture given at our college several years ago by the American scholar of world religious dialogue, Paul Knitter.

he quoted Jonathan Swift.

Here are the great words:

We have just enough religion to make us hate one another, but not enough religion to make us love one another.

I guess there is a lot to say in response to that. But maybe silence is a better response.

This quotation, I have since found, is from Thoughts on Various Subjects, collected by Pope and Swift, and published in The Spectator, no 459. The text is available online, at http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/swift/jonathan/s97th/

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