Simone Weil Quotes on Belief

5 quotes

  1. There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God.

  2. In order to obey God, one must receive his commands. How did it happen that I received them in adolescence, while I was professing atheism? To believe that the desire for good is always fulfilled - that is faith, and whoever has it is not an atheist.

  3. No human being escapes the necessity of conceiving some good outside himself towards which his thought turns in a movement of desire, supplication, and hope. consequently, the only choice is between worshipping the true God or an idol. Every atheist is an idolater - unless he is worshipping the true God in his impersonal aspect. The majority of the pious are idolaters.

  4. We must leave on one side the beliefs which fill up voids and sweeten what is bitter. The belief in immortality. The belief in the utility of sin: etiam peccata. The belief in the providential ordering of events - in short the 'consolations' which are ordinarily sought in religion. [p.258]

  5. If we love God while thinking that he does not exist, he will manifest his existence. [p.260]

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