Quotes about Humanity

Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish? Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God? Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few finite years of life?

The writers of the scriptures consistently affirm that we're all part of the same family. What we have in common—regardless of our tribe, language, customs, beliefs, or religion—outweighs our differences. This is why God wants "all people to be saved.

Because when you can't hear the cry, when you stop caring for the widow, the orphan, and the refugee among you, it always leads to the diminishing of your empire. History

Which is stronger and more powerful, the hardness of the human heart or God's unrelenting, infinite, expansive love?

it is absolutely vital that we acknowledge that love, grace, and humanity can be rejected. From the most subtle rolling of the eyes to the most violent degradation of another human, we are terrifyingly free to do as we please. God gives us what we want, and if that's hell, we can have it. We have that kind of freedom, that kind of choice. We are that free.

Science does an excellent job of telling me why I don't have a tail, but it can't explain why I find that interesting.

What we see in Jesus's story about the rich man and Lazarus is an affirmation that there are all kinds of hells, because there are all kinds of ways to resist and reject all that is good and true and beautiful and human now, in this life, and so we can only assume we can do the same in the next.

gospel that has as its chief message avoiding hell or not sinning will never be the full story. A gospel that repeatedly, narrowly affirms and bolsters the "in-ness" of one group at the expense of the "out-ness" of another group will not be true to the story that includes "all things and people in heaven and on earth.

This is why loneliness creates such a deep ache in our bones. It's holding up—and working against—the direction the universe has been heading for over thirteen billion years. Same with racism. Regardless of where we come from or what we look like, we're all humans, and when humans fail to bond and unite and connect with other humans, that's going against the direction the universe has been going for thirteen billion years.

Paul's insistence here is that what God is doing in Christ is for everybody, every nation, every ethnic group, every tribe. Paul uses the expansive word "Gentiles"—a first-century way of saying "everybody else.

As obvious as it is, then, Jesus is bigger than any one religion.

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.