Trusting Doubt Quotes

“We humans are prone to err, and to err systematically, outrageously, and with utter confidence. We are also prone to hold our mistaken notions dear, protecting and nourishing them like our own children. We defend them at great cost. We surround ourselves with safe people, people who will appreciate our cherished views. We avoid those who suggest that our exalted ideas, our little emperors, have no clothes.”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“I would rather live with unanswered questions than unquestioned answers.”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“Remember, if you hold something close enough, you lose your ability to see it.”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“I would rather live with unanswered questions than unquestioned answers,”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“In spite of myself, I kept tunneling under and out, carrying secret, scary, confusing discoveries back in with me until, finally, I got to a place where I stood and looked back, and the walls looked to me like a prison instead of a sanctuary.”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“It is a grave mistake to think that the Inquisition or the Southern lynchings or the Rwandan genocide were committed by people who were fundamentally different from us. Soul-scarred Vietnam veterans have tried repeatedly to tell us: You don’t know what you’re capable of until you are there. Only when all of us recognize our own potential for evil, do we have some power to guard against it.”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“Had the cold war gone hot, there’s no question but that religious fervor would have played a role in the battle against “godless Communism.” Not “brutal” communism, not “economically suicidal” communism, not “anti-democratic” communism. Godless. In 1957, midway between McCarthyism and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the words “In God We Trust” were added to U.S. paper currency. In 1954, “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance that had previously said, “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”19 Note that “In God We Trust” had been added to U.S. coins by the Union during the Civil War.20 Abraham Lincoln himself said, “Both (sides) read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.”21 But it was the Union that stamped its claim to God’s allegiance on the coins.22 Warring parties want strong allies, and God is one ally who can be recruited simply by declaration.”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“We like things to be black or white, tall or short, here or there. We like to consider two sides to every story. Unfortunately, there aren’t always two sides. Sometimes there’s only one; more often, there are multitudes. Many facets on the stone. Nooks and crannies in abundance. Things are usually not either black or white, but multicolored. —Barry Leiba, “Faulty Logic: False Dichotomy”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“If the serpent was actually Satan, a fallen angel, then why were serpents punished rather than Satan himself? (Satan doesn’t crawl around on his belly in later stories.)”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“Spirituality centered in love is hard work, but it is solid granite. Because love doesn’t insist on who is right, it isn’t at risk when we are shown wrong. It simply is a commitment to a foundational set of values – and a values commitment is something that no one else can take away.”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“The lengths to which Bible believers will go to defend violent and contradictory passages – wedding themselves at times to outright foolishness – suggest that biblical literalism is rooted in fear.”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“To be blunt, because the Bible was written over a time period spanning centuries and was integrated “by committee,” the biblical God is a mass of contradictions. The more carefully and completely one reads the Bible, the more incoherent the image of God becomes. If one attempts to build an image of God that integrates all of the characteristics, attributes, and behaviors the scriptures describe, the resulting description is nonsensical. Words have to be redefined so thoroughly that they become meaningless.”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light

“I had come to the place where I now live. It is a place of freedom, the freedom to accept the evidence of my senses and my mind. It is difficult to describe the peace that comes with giving yourself permission to know what you know: to have hard, complicated realities staring at you and to be able to raise your head and look back at them with a steady gaze, scared maybe, grieved perhaps, but straight on and unwavering.”
― Valerie Tarico, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light