The Birth of the Living God Quotes

“This belief makes God a truly amazing object. He is the only relevant object who has not undergone and cannot undergo reality testing.”
― Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God

“When dealing with the concrete fact of belief, it is important to clarify the conceptual and emotional differences between the concept of God and the images of God which, combined in multiple forms, produce the prevailing God representation in a given individual at a given time. The concept of God is fabricated mostly at the level of secondary-process thinking. This is the God of the theologicians, the God whose existence is debated by metaphysical reasoning. But this God leaves us cold. The philosophers and mystics know this better than anybody else. This God is only the result of rigorous thinking about causality or philosophical premises. Even someone who believes intellectually that there must be a God may feel no inclination to accept him unless images of previous interpersonal experience have fleshed out the concept with multiple images that can now coalesce in a representation that he can accept emotionally.”
― Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God

“In this sense, at least, religion is not an illusion. It is an integral part of being human, truly human in our capacity to create nonvisible but meaningful realities capable of containing our potential for imaginative expansion beyond the boundaries of the senses.”
― Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God

“There's no such thing as a person without a God representation.”
― Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God

“No child arrives at the 'house of God' without his pet God under his arm.”
― Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God