A nation can assume that the addition of the words "under God" to its pledge of allegiance gives evidence that its citizens actually believe in God whereas all it really proves is that they believe in "believing" in God
Huston SmithRead
Institutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for religion... religion is institutionalized spirituality.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the complexities and imperfections of institutions in various fields, including government, medicine, education, and religion.
Huston Smith's quote points out that while institutions serve important functions in society, they often come with flaws and bureaucratic challenges that can detract from their ideals. He emphasizes that beauty can be absent in institutions like governments, universities, and religious organizations, which are often entangled in procedural and structural inefficiencies even as they aim to promote healing, learning, and spiritual growth.
Themes
InstitutionsGovernmentMedicineEducationReligionSpiritualityImperfection
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the limitations of bureaucracies, one might use this quote to highlight the flaws in government systems.
More from Huston Smith
All quotes →One reason education undoes belief is its teaching of evolution; Darwin's own drift from orthodoxy to agnosticism was symptomatic. Martin Lings is probably right in saying that more cases of loss of religious faith are to be traced to the theory of evolution ... than to anything else.
Huston SmithRead
So always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues.
Huston SmithRead
The crisis that the world finds itself in as it swings on the hinge of a new millennium is located in something deeper than particular ways of organizing political systems and economies.
Huston SmithRead
...conversation can be as mutually incomprehensible as foreign languages. We need the different and complementary perspectives of the various yogas - and ideally of all religions - not only to reach God but to reach each other.
Huston SmithRead
In the post-individualistic era, science and spirituality will become allies, and human beings will realize a vast potentiality now only dimly felt.
Huston SmithRead
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