This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Joseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin
There is no one Hindu view of life or meaning, but rather multiple centers of meaning, belief and practice, all legitimately called Hinduism, and all connected yet radically different… Fundamentally, life and self-identity are seen as fluid, marked by impermanence, while ultimately there is an Absolute Oneness into which all the distinctions between multiple forms of the divine, the world, and human beings dissolve
Absolute | Belief | Life | Life | Meaning | Oneness | Practice | Self | Self-identity | World |
Roger L. Shinn, fully Roger Lincoln Shinn
The stumbling block of revelation is the belief in God in time, God in history.
Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao
Many people think it impossible for guerillas to exist for long in the enemy’s rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water and the latter to the fish who inhabits it.
Belief | Enemy | People | Relationship | Think |
Eckhart Tolle, born Ulrich Leonard Tolle
Nobody can tell you who you are. It would just be another concept, so it would not change you. Who you are requires no belief. In fact, every belief is an obstacle.
Article 18 - Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Belief | Change | Conscience | Freedom of thought | Freedom | Practice | Public | Religion | Right | Thought | Worship |
Computational irreducibility tends to make infinite questions undecidable. The presence of universality implies that there must at some level be computational irreducibility… This means that today’s mathematics will be viewed as small and surprisingly uncharacteristic sample of what is possible. If a system is computationally irreducible this means that there is in effect a tangible separation between the underlying rules for the system and its overall behavior associated with the irreducible amount of computational work needed to go from one to the other. And it is this separation that the basic origin of the apparent freedom we see in all sorts of system lie – whether those systems are abstract cellular automata or actual living brains.
Abstract | Behavior | Freedom | Mathematics | Means | System | Will | Work |
World Council of Churches NULL
Religious liberty includes freedom to change one’ religion or belief without consequent social, economic and political disabilities. Implicit in this right is the right freely to maintain one’s belief or disbelief without external coercion or disability.
Belief | Change | Coercion | Disbelief | Freedom | Liberty | Religion | Right |
Replacing religious institutions that are thousands of years old and hostile to reason with a reason-based belief system would transform society in a positive way more than any mere political change or economic-policy change ever could.
Belief | Change | Policy | Reason | Society | System | Society | Old |
The established religious institutions are bastions of ignorance in a world where knowledge has become the most valuable commodity. Well-entrenched, these institutions hold back social progress, dividing people who otherwise have no reason to oppose one another, fanning the flames of militarism and nationalism. Most of all, however, they are promoting ignorance and falsehoods at the expense of truth. How can society advance under such erroneous belief systems?
Belief | Ignorance | Knowledge | People | Progress | Reason | Society | Truth | World | Society |
In our nation, the people are sovereign, not the government. It is the people, not the media or the financial system or megacorporations or the two political parties, who have the power to create change.
Change | Government | People | Power | System |
Al Gore, Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr.,
What makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our national distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and democracy are what have led us as a people to consistently choose good over evil in our collective aspirations.
Commitment | Democracy | Devotion | Distrust | Evil | Good | History | Law | Nations | Openness | People | Power | Rule | System |
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.