When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.
Charles DickensRead
But theological change happens though selective quoting. Every religious person does it: You quote those verses that resonate with your own religious insights and ignore or reinterpret those that undermine your certainties. Selective quoting isn't just legitimate, but essential: Religions evolve through shifts in selective quoting.
Interpretation
Selective quoting allows individuals to shape religious beliefs based on personal insights while evolving the understanding of faith.
This quote highlights how individuals within religious contexts often focus on specific verses that support their beliefs while overlooking or reinterpreting those that contradict them. It suggests that this practice of selective quoting is not only common but also a necessary process for the evolution of religious thought, as it allows for personal interpretation and adaptation of faith over time.
In practice
In a discussion about religious beliefs, this quote can illustrate how individuals perceive their faith.
When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.
This is one of the most effective adaptations of racism over time - that we can think of racism as only something that individuals either are or are not 'doing.'
A man can spend several hours sitting cross-legged in the same position if he knows that noting prevents him from changing it; but if he knows that he has to sit with his legs crossed like that, he will get cramps, his legs will twitch and strain towards where he would like to stretch them.
Menstruation not only carries with it the connotation of a productive system that has failed to produce; it also carries the idea of production gone awry, making products of no use, not to specification, unsalable, wasted, scrap.
God's word is always effective and produces whatever it expresses. My words, on the contrary, cannot create anything; I can only change what already is into something else.
Perhaps my whisper was already born before my lips.
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