Just in our lifetime our society has become looser and more private, it becomes extremely difficult to hold to any permanent commitment whatever, least of all to organized religion. – Mary Douglas
Religion can make it worse. Are you supposing that if people were encouraged to believe in a transcendent reality, and to be encouraged by grand rituals and music and preaching, to love their neighbors, then they would put jealousy and frustration aside? – Mary Douglas
Since 1970, relationships can be more volatile, jobs more ephemeral, geographical mobility more intensified, stability of marriage weaker. – Mary Douglas
I am sure it must be true that people opt out of the mainstream society because they feel that there are going to be no rewards for them, if they stay. – Mary Douglas
My sense of religion is Einsteins sense of relativity. I dont believe in God. I believe that energy never dies. So the possibility exists that you might be breathing in some other form of Moses or Buddha or Muhammad or Bobby Kennedy or Roosevelt or Martin Luther King or Jesus. – Mandy Patinkin