For if you have not Him to sit on you, you may lift up the neck, may strike out the heels: but woe to you without a ruler, for this liberty sends you among the wild beasts to be devoured!

Greater love than this can no man have, that a man lay down his life for his friends

For we have made an agreement with our God in prayer, that if we would that He should forgive us our sins, we also should forgive the sins which may have been committed against us.

world to all the faithful seeking their own country, as was the desert to the people Israel

No man has seen God at any time

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

. If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

while I desire to do good, evil is present

to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God.

For he who has died has been freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him!

but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For the law produces wrath; for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience.

Or is God the God of Jews only? Isn’t he the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed there is one God

What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way. For we previously warned both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.

You therefore who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn’t steal, do you steal? You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who glory in the law, do you dishonor God by disobeying the law? For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written

For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.

God is revealed in them, for God revealed it to them.

For God is my witness

; among whom you are also called to belong to Jesus Christ; to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

Truly. It was really nice meeting you, Mick, and I would like to hear more about your perspective on religion.Mick: Well, at this point, I don't know what my perspective is. You have really given me a lot to think about.

when I pray to love it is more like meditating on the nature of love, trying to discern what love would require, and trying to bring myself into line with that.

Well, I don’t pray, but I assume it means asking god for things.

Well, it is what people do in church: proclaim the gospel, pray, affirm the creeds, participate in the sacraments, and so forth.

Notice that all three are different terms. Someone could talk about the Morning Star without realizing it is the same thing as the Evening Star, and they might not realize that both are names that were used to refer to Venus. It took work — work on the part of astronomers — to reveal that these names all refer to one and the same thing. I think a similar thing can be said about God and love.

Well, as I mentioned, like the classical theists, I don’t think god is a being. But as a Christian—and I admit that this gets me into tricky terrain—I trust that god is love.

Setting up theism and atheism as contradictory requires that we simplify a complex array of beliefs and practices to the point of confusing issues that need to be dealt with in their particularity. Now, if we specify what we mean — in other words, if we peg a specific and clear meaning on each — then someone could say they are theist or atheist in that precise sense.They all take a drink.

God isn’t a being, but rather, being itself.

How can their principle be a god if it isn’t a person?

There are a vast number of different theisms, and I don’t think we can easily identify something substantive that they all share in common, beyond simply the nominal commitment to something that is divine — usually expressed through the use of the word “god.” But people mean different things by “god.”

Everyone these days talks as if God is an individual being, a person.Mick: Um, yeah. Isn’t that what they are supposed to believe?

But what I tend to think is that people mean different things when they talk about “god” or “gods.” That was the original point I wanted to make, Doc. Similarly, people mean different things when they refer to theism and atheism. And so, yes, in some sense, I’m not a theist.

What’s that mean? “God isn’t god”? And can you really say something like that, being a priest and all?Doc: Well, in fairness, he’s a very unorthodox priest. His type gets away with all sorts of things.

It’s the idea that it is love itself, understood as person who is in some sense identical to the universal, which is divine in their view.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My point is that “eros” just is the word for love, so to say that Eros is the god of love would be like saying Eros is the god of eros.

Well, there are a few. “Philia” is the one that obviously comes to mind. But also “eros” and “storge.” And, of course, “agape.”

Let us confess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.And they do.

What you might not know is they disbanded shortly after that, but during the time that they worked in the community, the naloxone kits they distributed were used to successfully reverse over sixty overdoses.Mike wasn’t one of them. He died under a tree in a park named after a president who despised people of his race.

because he has given us of his Spirit.

Alas! my companion, and will you leave me in despair? I was hoping that you would instruct me in the nature of piety and impiety; and then I might have cleared myself of Meletus and his indictment. I would have told him that I had been enlightened by Euthyphro, and had given up rash innovations and speculations, in which I indulged only through ignorance, and that now I am about to lead a better life

And the same holds as in the previous instances; the state of being loved follows the act of being loved, and not the act the state.

How would you show that all the gods absolutely agree in approving of his act? Prove to me that they do, and I will applaud your wisdom as long as I live.

Then, my friend, I remark with surprise that you have not answered the question which I asked. For I certainly did not ask you to tell me what action is both pious and impious: but now it would seem that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them.

But, as you who are well informed about them approve of them, I cannot do better than assent to your superior wisdom. What else can I say, confessing as I do, that I know nothing about them? Tell me, for the love of Zeus, whether you really believe that they are true.

So inconsistent are they in their way of talking when the gods are concerned, and when I am concerned

And therefore, I adjure you to tell me the nature of piety and impiety, which you said that you knew so well, and of murder, and of other offences against the gods. What are they? Is not piety in every action always the same? and impiety, again—is it not always the opposite of piety, and also the same with itself, having, as impiety, one notion which includes whatever is impious?

but if you disapprove, you should begin by indicting him who is my teacher, and who will be the ruin, not of the young, but of the old; that is to say, of myself whom he instructs, and of his old father whom he admonishes and chastises. And if Meletus refuses to listen to me, but will go on, and will not shift the indictment from me to you, I cannot do better than repeat this challenge in the court.

f justly, then your duty is to let the matter alone; but if unjustly, then even if the murderer lives under the same roof with you and eats at the same table, proceed against him.

I suppose that the man whom your father murdered was one of your relatives—clearly he was; for if he had been a stranger you would never have thought of prosecuting him.

as I myself know too well; for when I speak in the assembly about divine things, and foretell the future to them, they laugh at me and think me a madman. Yet every word that I say is true. But they are jealous of us all; and we must be brave and go at them.

Plato is well-known as a harsh critic of democracy (literally: “rule by the many”), which isn’t surprising since the Athenian democrats killed Socrates, his beloved teacher. Against democracy, Plato defended the idea that society should be administered and ruled by experts who oversee a bureaucratic meritocracy. He was thus a defender of aristocracy (literally: “rule by the best”).

whereas they claimed to know things when in fact they didn't, he never claimed to know anything (other than the fact that he didn’t know anything).

A former Republican presidential candidate, Marco Rubio, provoked the ire of professional philosophers by saying that the world doesn’t need more philosophers; rather, it needs welders and other people who do “real” work

Rather, justice, he argues, is simply the name given to those character traits, habits, and rules of action, the adoption of which by the vast run of folks is in the interest of the politically and socially powerful

The mythopoetic accounts, we might suppose, may not have been intended to accurately depict what happened at the beginning of time. And even if they were, the question stands as to how these human authors could have possibly known whether their accounts accurately depicted such things.

everything is open to rational interrogation, even — or perhaps especially — those things which are often taken for granted, assumed to be beyond question, or said to be sacrosanct.

not only one’s private beliefs and values, but also those that prevail within and inform one’s society.