Huston Smith
Huston Smith
Huston Cummings Smithis a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religionshas sold over two million copies and remains a popular introduction to comparative religion...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTheologian
Date of Birth31 May 1919
CountryUnited States of America
space nuclear looks
When historians look back on our century, they may remember it most, not for space travel or the release of nuclear energy, but as the time when the peoples of the world first came to take one another seriously.
distance animal rocks
Ancient wisdom and quantum physicists make unlikely bedfellows: In quantum mechanics the observer determines (or even brings into being) what is observed, and so, too, for the Tiwis, who dissolve the distinction between themselves and the cosmos. In quantum physics, subatomic particles influence each other from a distance, and this tallies with the aboriginal view, in which people, animals, rocks, and trees all weave together in the same interwoven fabric.
dark woods rescue
Rationalism and Newtonian science has lured us into dark woods, but a new metaphysics can rescue us.
believe giving citizens
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
years two religion
As the twentieth century began, science equaled a materialistic worldview. As the twenty-first century began, the worldview of science, at least of physics and astronomy, may have traded place with that of religion. Consider Einstein's famous equation E = mc2. Nothing of matter dies but continues on in another form, elsewhere. The church divines and theologians for two thousand years have devised arguments and "proofs" of immortality but nothing equal to this.
sleep important miles
When there are miles to go before we sleep, altered traits are more important than altered states.
spiritual makeup everyday
Built into human makeup is a longing for a 'more' that the world of everyday experience cannot requite.
different sanctity destination
...the single destination of sanctity could admit of so many different avenues leading to it.
reality emphasis ought
In nature, the emphasis is in what is rather than what ought to be.
gratitude future responsibility
What is Zen? Simple, simple, so simple. Infinite gratitude toward all things past; infinite service to all things present; infinite responsibility to all things future.
destiny church world
Not only is the destiny of the individual bound up with the entire Church; it is responsible for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history.
responsibility yield people
If human life is to survive on this planet, the old dualistic worldview, with people on one side and the environment on the other, must yield to a new vision that connects us with everything else and leads us to care for and take responsibility for it.
inspirational made humans
As human beings we are made to surpass ourselves and are truly ourselves only when transcending ourselves.
distance drama character
We are free when we are not the slave of our impulses, but rather their master. Taking inward distance, we thus become the authors of our own dramas rather than characters in them.