And enough for me that when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you called my name.
Orson Scott CardRead
So let me tell you what I think about gods. I think a real god is not going to be so scared or angry that he tries to keep other people down…A real god doesn’t care about control. A real god already has control of everything that needs controlling. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that a true god values freedom and empowerment over control and fear.
Orson Scott Card reflects on the nature of a true god, suggesting that such a deity would not exhibit fear or anger nor seek to control others. Instead, a real god would aim to inspire and teach humanity to attain a similar state of enlightened being, promoting growth and understanding rather than oppression.
Themes
GodControlEmpowermentPhilosophyFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about spirituality during a seminar, one could use this quote to illustrate the concept of empowerment in religious beliefs.
More from Orson Scott Card
All quotes →The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win.
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Never mind that the story had turned out to be lies and foolishness—there was always folks stupid enough to say, Where there's smoke there's fire, when the saying should have been, Where there's scandalous lies there's always malicious believers and spreaders-around, regardless of evidence.
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The lives of all people flow through time, and, regardless of how brutal one moment may be, how filled with grief or pain or fear, time flows through all lives equally.
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You take a step, then another. That's the journey. But to take a step with your eyes open is not a journey at all, it's a remaking of your own mind.
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I've had your tears with mine, and you've had mine with yours. I think that's more intimate even than a kiss.
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Each time the losses and deceptions of life teach us about impermanence, they bring us closer to the truth. When you fall from a great height, there is only one possible place to land: on the ground-the ground of truth. And if you have the understanding that comes from spiritual practice, then falling is in no way a disaster, but the discovery of an inner refuge.
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Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think...of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the 'right' notes and the 'wrong' ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.
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The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn't.
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When we adopt—and when we encourage a culture of adoption in our churches and communities—we’re picturing something that’s true about our God. We, like Jesus, see what our Father is doing and do likewise (John 5:19). And what our Father is doing, it turns out, is fighting for orphans, making them sons and daughters.
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It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.
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