Huston Smith
Huston Smith
Huston Cummings Smithis a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religionshas sold over two million copies and remains a popular introduction to comparative religion...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTheologian
Date of Birth31 May 1919
CountryUnited States of America
lying prove provinces
Science can prove nothing about God, because God lies outside its province.
teacher real special
Poetry is a special use of language that opens onto the real. The business of the poet is truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet.
reflection knowing mind
Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so to speak. Or better, we continue and extend it.
swings political world
The crisis that the world finds itself in as it swings on the hinge of a new millennium is located in something deeper than particular ways of organizing political systems and economies.
beautiful white issues
Modern science agrees that the universe consists of vibrations, but sound is more than vibration. Distinct from white noise, sound is vibrations in harmonic proportions, and from the billions of vibrations that are possible, the universe shows a startling, overwhelming preference for the few thousand that make harmonic sense.This is because the One, from which all things issue, is beautiful.
hero roles alive
Only while they are conforming their actions to the model of some archetypal hero do the Arunta feel that they are truly alive, for in those roles they are immortal. The occasions on which they slip from such molds are quite meaningless, for time immediately devours those occasions and reduces them to nothingness.
near-death near-death-experience moved
I am profoundly moved and persuaded by the near-death experience.
essence shells way
Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. This is not the only way to put it. But it's my way. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different.
dust divinity
We are a blend of dust and divinity.
eras allies spirituality
In the post-individualistic era, science and spirituality will become allies, and human beings will realize a vast potentiality now only dimly felt.
heart eye faith-religion
Seen through the eyes of faith, religion's future is secure. As long as there are human beings, there will be religion for the sufficient reason that the self is a theomorphic creature - one whose morphe (form) is theos - God encased within it. Having been created in the imago Dei, the image God, all human beings have a God-shaped vacuum built into their hearts. Since nature abhors a vacuum, people keep trying to fill the one inside them.
blessed pride vanity
'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God' suggested to me a heavenly welfare program for the meek. Today that saying reveals an astute insight into egotism, about how those with swollen pride or vanity cannot see anything larger than themselves.
christianity found third-grade
When I read the Upanishads, which are part of Vedanta, I found a profundity of worldview that made my Christianity seem like third grade.
mean thinking dedication
I think it matters almost infinitely that we practice one of the authentic religions. But if you mean does it make any difference which. The answer is no, as long as each is followed with equal intensity, sincerity, dedication.