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
differences unity blind
Beware of the differences that blind us to the unity that binds us.
challenges everyday recreation
The object of pilgrimage is not rest and recreation – to get away from it all. To set out on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life.
sex epiphany divine
Sex is the divine in its most available epiphany.
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.
near-death near-death-experience moved
I am profoundly moved and persuaded by the near-death experience.
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.
earth transformation used
Religion teaches us that our lives here on earth are to be used for transformation.
destiny church world
Not only is the destiny of the individual bound up with the entire Church; it is responsible for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history.
islands wonder shoreline
As known unknowns become known; unknown unknowns proliferate; the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
religious attitude taken
Entheogens are not to be lightly trifled with... However, if taken with the right attitude and in the proper setting, psychoactive drugs may produce religious experiences. ...it is far less clear that they can produce religious lives.
fire way hearing
The Sufis say there are three ways to know fire - by hearing it described, by seeing it, or by being burned.
hands library facts
Exclusively oral cultures are unencumbered by dead knowledge, dead facts. Libraries, on the other hand, are full of them.
religious issues justice
So always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues.
morning humble humility
Water is patient; it can stagnate and let itself be coated with scum if need be. It is as gentle as the morning's dew. It is non-confrontational, even respectful, in circumventing the rocks in a stream. It makes room for everything that enters its pools. It accommodates by assuming the shape of any vessel it is poured into. And it is humble, seeking always the lowest level. Yet along with - or rather because of these adaptive, yielding properties, it is ultimately irresistible; it carves canyons out of stone.