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21 " Human beings have capitalized on the silence of animals, just as certain human beings have historically imposed silence on certain other human beings by denying slaves the right to literacy, denying women the right to own property, and denying both the right to vote. "
― , Animals and the Moral Community: Mental Life, Moral Status, and Kinship
22 " Everyone, no matter how historically famous or modernly praised, has no idea about the ultimate truth of what it means to be human. "
― Chris Matakas , #Human: Learning To Live In Modern Times
23 " It should be noted, as with so many legends and popularly accepted truths created out of political motivation: There, in fact, is no evidence that the hundreds of murders historically attributed to the werewolves of Gévaudan were actually caused by wolves. As with all witchhunts, the endless battle against ignorance requires one to always keep an open mind and sharp wits when considering such rumors - especially the rumors we choose to enjoy. "
― , Beatdom #11
24 " I don't know which Bible stories ought to be treated as historically accurate, scientifically provable accounts of facts and which stories are meant to be metaphorical. I don't know if it really matters so long as those stories transform my life. "
― Rachel Held Evans , Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions
25 " The demand that the Bible should be read and understood and expounded historically is, therefore, obviously justified and can never be taken too seriously. The Bible itself posits this demand: even where it appeals expressly to divine commissionings and promptings, in its actual composition it is everywhere a human word, and this human word is obviously intended to be taken seriously and read and understood and expounded as such. To do anything else would be to miss the reality of the Bible and therefore the Bible itself as the witness of revelation. The demand for a " historical" understanding of the Bible necessarily means, in content, that we have to take it for what it undoubtedly is and is meant to be: the human speech uttered by specific men at specific times in a specific situation, in a specific language and with a specific intention. It means that the understanding of it has honestly and unreservedly been one which is guided by all these consideration. If the word " historical" is a modern word, the thing itself was not really invented in modern times. And if the more exact definition of what is " historical" in this sense is liable to change and has actually changed at times, it is still quite clear that when and wherever the Bible has been really read and expounded, in this sense it has been read " historically" and not unhistorically, i.e., its concrete humanity has not been ignored. To the extent that it has been ignored, it has not been read at all. We have, therefore, not only no cause to retract from this demand, but every cause to accept it strictly on theological grounds.(§19.1, p. 464) "
26 " But the most catastrophic display of misogyny in all religion lies at the very heart of Christianity—in the story of the Virgin Mary. That Jesus was born of a virgin is a fundamental narrative upon which all Christianity is based. It is one that is carried through to Islam, where the Quran holds Mary in great esteem.The implications of this have historically been devastating to women....Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ as a virgin, with no man ever having touched her. She is therefore described as pure, chaste, undefiled, innocent—being the product of an “immaculate conception” herself (as per Catholic doctrine), and now hosting God’s immaculate son in her unblemished womb.What does this mean for women who are touched by men? Are their conceptions corrupted? Are their characters and bodies now impure or unchaste? Have they been “defiled”?...Was all of Mary’s beauty, sanctity, chastity, and innocence confined to her vagina?Fetishizing Mary’s virginity—as Christians and Muslims both do—is a sickness that directly leads to a dangerous, unnatural glamorization of celibacy and sexual repression.”Excerpt From: Ali A. Rizvi. “The Atheist Muslim.” iBooks. "
― Ali A. Rizvi , The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason
27 " Of all the great and minor faiths as religions that have evolved over the ages with humanity. Many had their birth at the death or near death of another religious faith. One day the anthropological phenomena of our predominant faiths may become naturally forgotten, demonized, if notmorph into another religious tradition altogether. What we historically call as mythology is for Ancient Greece,Persia, or Mayan cultures were the Almighty religions of their age. So it will be again with our Epoch from today our renowned and accomplished heirs of thousands of years intoour combined futures. That will have regarded our present day Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as mythologies of their own future anthropological understanding. "
― Ivan Alexander Pozo-Illas
28 " John F. Kennedy " is, in reality, a deeply serious man, reflective in his mental habits, historically minded, and given to seeing men and nations and events in the sobering context that history provides.As a human being, he is often humorous, easily bored by total routine but open to all fresh experiences, careless of the superficialities of life, warmly loyal to his friends, and oddly detached about himself. His most curious trait, in fact, is his way of discussing his most vital affairs with the dry humor and cool analytical remoteness that most people reserve for the affairs of others. – Joseph Alsop "
29 " The truth is quite the contrary: the author is not an indefinite source of significations which fill a work; the author does not precede the works, he is a certain functional principle by which, in our culture, one limits, excludes, and chooses; in short, by which one impedes the free circulation, the free manipulation, the free composition, decomposition, and recomposition of fiction. In fact, if we are accustomed to presenting the author as a genius, as a perpetual surging of invention, it is because, in reality, we make him function in exactly the opposite fashion. One can say that the author is an ideological product, since we represent him as the opposite of his historically real function. (When a historically given function is represented in a figure that inverse is, one has an ideological production). The author is therefore the ideological figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of meaning.In saying this, I seem to call for a form of culture in which fiction would not be limited by the figure of the author… "
― Michel Foucault , What is an Author?
30 " It seemed to me that transhumanism was an expression of the profound human longing to transcend the confusion and desire and impotence and sickness of the body, cowering in the darkening shadow of its own decay. This longing had historically been the domain of religion, and was now the increasingly fertile terrain of technology. "
― Mark O'Connell , To Be a Machine : Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death
31 " A cult is a group of people who share an obsessive devotion to a person or idea. The cults described in this book use violent tactics to recruit, indoctrinate, and keep members. Ritual abuse is defined as the emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive acts performed by violent cults. Most violent cults do not openly express their beliefs and practices, and they tend to live separately in noncommunal environments to avoid detection.Some victims of ritual abuse are children abused outside the home by nonfamily members, in public settings such as day care. Other victims are children and teenagers who are forced by their parents to witness and participate in violent rituals. Adult ritual abuse victims often include these grown children who were forced from childhood to be a member of the group. Other adult and teenage victims are people who unknowingly joined social groups or organizations that slowly manipulated and blackmailed them into becoming permanent members of the group. All cases of ritual abuse, no matter what the age of the victim, involve intense physical and emotional trauma.Violent cults may sacrifice humans and animals as part of religious rituals.They use torture to silence victims and other unwilling participants. Ritual abuse victims say they are degraded and humiliated and are often forced to torture, kill, and sexually violate other helpless victims. The purpose of the ritual abuse is usually indoctrination. The cults intend to destroy these victims' free will by undermining their sense of safety in the world and by forcing them to hurt others.In the last ten years, a number of people have been convicted on sexual abuse charges in cases where the abused children had reported elements of ritual child abuse. These children described being raped by groups of adults who wore costumes or masks and said they were forced to witness religious-type rituals in which animals and humans were tortured or killed. In one case, the defense introduced in court photographs of the children being abused by the defendants[.1] In another case, the police found tunnels etched with crosses and pentacles along with stone altars and candles in a cemetery where abuse had been reported. The defendants in this case pleaded guilty to charges of incest, cruelty, and indecent assault.[2] Ritual abuse allegations have been made in England, the United States, and Canada.[3]Many myths abound concerning the parents and children who report ritual abuse. Some people suggest that the tales of ritual abuse are " mass hysteria." They say the parents of these children who report ritual abuse are often overly zealous Christians on a " witch-hunt" to persecute satanists.These skeptics say the parents are fearful of satanism, and they use their knowledge of the Black Mass (a historically well-known, sexualized ritual in which animals and humans are sacrificed) to brainwash their children into saying they were abused by satanists.[4] In 1992 I conducted a study to separate fact from fiction in regard to the disclosures of children who report ritual abuse.[5] The study was conducted through Believe the Children, a national organization that provides support and educational sources for ritual abuse survivors and their families. "
32 " Racists are everywhere, but historically speaking the real danger came from Progressives that desired the power of the state to engineer society upon a racial lines. "
― A.E. Samaan
33 " I mean to ask whether there is any way of avoiding the hostility expressed by the division say, of men into " us" (Westerners) and " they" (Orientals). For such divisions are generalities whose use historically and actually has been to press the importance of the distinction between some men and some other men, usually towards not especially admirable ends. "
34 " Far from being Eurocentric, my analysis " exoticizes" Europe. Europe is historically aberrant. In some ways this was a historical accident, not entirely Europe's fault. But, in any case, it is nothing about which Europe should boast. Perhaps Europe and the world will one day be cured of this terrible malady with which Europe (and through Europe the world) has been afflicted. "
35 " Antigay activists have historically maintained that same-sex sexuality is a lifestyle choice that should be discouraged, deemed illegitimate, and even punished by the culture at large. In other words, if lesbian/gay/bisexual people to not have to be gay but are simply choosing a path of decadence and deviance, then the government should have no obligation to protect their civil rights or honor their relationships; to the contrary, the state should actively condemn same-sex sexuality and deny it legal and social recognition in order to discourage others from following that path.Not surprisingly, advocates for gay/lesbian/bisexual rights see things differently. They counter that sexual orientation is not a matter of choice but an inborn trait that is much beyond an individual's control as skin or eye color. Accordingly, since gay/lesbian/bisexual individuals cannot choose to be heterosexual, it is unethical to discriminate against them and to deny legal recognition to same-sex relationships.(...)Perhaps instead of arguing that gay/lesbian/bisexual individuals deserve civil rights because they are powerless to change their behavior, we should affirm the fundamental rights of all people to determine their own emotional and sexual lives. "
36 " If you think about it, the public perception of funky brain chemistry has been as varied and weird as the symptoms, historically speaking. If I had been born a Native American in another time, I might have been lauded as a medicine man. My voices would have been seen as the voices of ancestors imparting wisdom. I would have been treated with great mystical regard. If I had lived in biblical times, I might have been seen as a prophet, because, let’s face it, there are really only two possibilities: either prophets were actually hearing God speaking to them, or they were mentally ill. I’m sure if an actual prophet surfaced today, he or she would receive plenty of Haldol injections, until the sky opened up and the doctors were slapped silly by the Hand of God. In the Dark Ages my parents would have sent for an exorcist, because I was clearly possessed by evil spirits, or maybe even the Devil himself. And if I lived in Dickensian England, I would have been thrown into Bedlam, which is more than just a description of madness. It was an actual place—a “madhouse” where the insane were imprisoned in unthinkable conditions. Living in the twenty-first century gives a person a much better prognosis for treatment, but sometimes I wish I’d lived in an age before technology. I would much rather everyone think I was a prophet than some poor sick kid. "
― Neal Shusterman , Challenger Deep
37 " We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It's almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to. "
― , A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
38 " Sometimes in the company of others I find a disagreeable spirit of competitiveness kicks in and each person is shamed into spending rather more than he would have wished. This is a historically established syndrome, of course. One Magus going to Bethlehem would probably have sprung for a box of After Eights. Three Magi on the same trip found themselves laden with gold, frankincense and myrrh and bitterly comtemplating their overdrafts. "
― James Hamilton-Paterson , Cooking with Fernet Branca (Gerald Samper, #1)
39 " Entheogens (or psychedelics, to be more historically correct) have now been recognized as the mother of our Western ecology and conservation movements, as well as the entire field of transpersonal psychology and our apparent desire to return to some firsthand spiritual and/or mystical understanding of G/d (rather than blindly accepting traditional religious dogma without an experiential basis. "
― , Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad
40 " The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained. "
― Emma Goldman
