Questioning Assumptions Quotes

“Many people (including most thinkers who argue about the existence of God) suppose that religious faith and the God-language it generates addresses such questions as 'What caused the universe?' and 'What happens to us after we die?' Such a beginning rests on the assumption that religion will answer for us questions that are at the edges, beyond our experience and our normal powers of knowing. I would suggest instead, echoing the twentieth-century Christian thinkers Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Thomas Merton, that religion answers questions that are at the very center, questions such as 'What does it mean to be human?' and 'How are we in the world?' and "How are we with others?' The first set of questions sees God as transcendently high, transcendently long ago, or transcendently into the future. The second set see, God as transcendently deep and, odd as this may sound, transcendently present.”
― Tom Christenson, Questioning Assumptions: Rethinking the Philosophy of Religion

“To fault myth for not being very good theory is like faulting a dancer for not being a very good football player. The appropriate response is not to defend against such charges but to point out, 'Dance is not poorly executed football; it's not football at all. Something completely different is going on there.”
― Tom Christenson, Questioning Assumptions: Rethinking the Philosophy of Religion