This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Does the world need more medicine and energy and buildings and food? No. There is enough food and medicine, there are enough resources for all. There is starvation and poverty and widespread disease because of human ignorance, prejudice, and fear. Out of greed and hatred we hoard materials; we create wars over imaginary geographic boundaries and act as if one group of people is truly different from another group somewhere else on the planet.
Disease | Energy | Enough | Fear | Greed | Ignorance | Need | People | Poverty | Prejudice | World |
We do not believe in immortality because we have proved it, but we forever try to prove it because we believe it.
Love and kindness are here all the time, somewhere, in fact, everywhere. Usually our ability to touch them and be touched by them lies buried below our own fears and hurts, below our greed and our hatreds, below our desperate clinging to the illusion that we are truly separate and alone.
Those for whom the belief in immortality is most vivid are the most likely to practice the virtues which have a survival value and the least likely to deviate into either those virtues or those vices which are exclusively human.
Belief | Immortality | Practice | Survival | Value |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Death is a great preacher of deathlessness. The protest of the soul against death, its reversion, its revulsion, is a high instinct of life. Dissatisfaction in his world who satisfieth the desire of every living thing has a grip on the future. As far as this goes, he has the least assurance of immortality who can be best satisfied with eating and drinking and “things”’ he has the surest hope of ongoings and far distances who does not live by brad alone, whose eye is looking over the shoulder of things, whose ear hears mighty waters rolling ever more, who has “hopes naught can satisfy below.” The limits of which death makes us aware, make us aware of life’s limitlessness. The wing cage knows it was meant for an ampler ether and diviner air.
Death | Desire | Future | Hope | Immortality | Instinct | Life | Life | Protest | Soul | World |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
Should this my firm persuasion of the soul's immortality prove to be a mere delusion, it is at least a pleasing delusion, and I will cherish it to my last breath.
Delusion | Immortality | Persuasion | Soul | Will |
The belief in immortality depends finally upon the belief in God. If there exists a good and wise God, then there also exists a progress of mankind toward perfection; and if there be no progress of men towards perfection, then there cannot be a good and wise God. We cannot suppose that God’s moral government, the beginnings of which we see in the world and in ourselves, will cease when we leave this life.
Belief | God | Good | Government | Immortality | Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Perfection | Progress | Will | Wise | World |
Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
Religious life is not threatened merely by vexing restrictions. It can also be threatened by the spread of false values - such as hedonism, power-seeking, greed - which are making headway in various countries and which in practice stifle the spiritual aspirations of large numbers of people.
I am a better believer, and all serious souls are better believers, in immortality than we can give grounds for.
Better | Immortality |
If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God, do enter in that man with justice.
God | Heart | Immortality | Justice | Man |
The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution.
Evidence | Immortality |
Addictive spirituality creates dependence in the practitioner (frequently to authoritarian leaders and their communities), an avoidance of personal responsibility, and loss of individuality through social controls, such as fear, guilt, or greed for power or bliss. It also tends to suppress rational inquiry into the teachings. Healthy spirituality, on the other hand, supports the practitioner's freedom, autonomy, self-esteem, and social responsibility. It is based on experience, rather than belief or dogma; it does not create idols out of spiritual teachers; and it empowers students by emphasizing democratic forms of learning and teaching, rather than the authoritarian model that has dominated spiritual life for millennia.
Belief | Dependence | Dogma | Esteem | Experience | Fear | Freedom | Greed | Guilt | Individuality | Inquiry | Learning | Life | Life | Model | Power | Responsibility | Self | Self-esteem | Spirituality | Loss |
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope.
Hope | Immortality |
William Jones, fully Sir William Jones of Nayland, aka Trinity Jones
We find in God all the excellences of light, truth, wisdom, greatness, goodness and life. Light gives joy and gladness; truth gives satisfaction; wisdom gives learning and instruction; greatness excites admiration; goodness produces love and gratitude; life gives immortality and insures enjoyment.
Admiration | Enjoyment | God | Gratitude | Greatness | Immortality | Joy | Learning | Life | Life | Light | Love | Truth | Wisdom | God |
Susan Ertz, aka Mrs. J.R. McCrindle
Millions yearn for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Susan Ertz, aka Mrs. J.R. McCrindle
Someone has somewhere commented on the fact that millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.