"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays."

Religion

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Religion as articulated by Soren Kierkegaard. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Religion provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About Soren Kierkegaard

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, Christian theologian, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christianity, morality, ethics, psychology, love, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony, and parables. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues around how one lives as a "single individual", highlighting the importance of authenticity, personal choice and commitment, and the duty to love. Kierkegaard prioritized concrete human reality over abstract thinking.

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More by Soren Kierkegaard

"What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music."

— Soren Kierkegaard
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"How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech."

— Soren Kierkegaard
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"The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo."

— Soren Kierkegaard
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"If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe."

— Soren Kierkegaard
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More about Religion

"The equation of religion with belief is rather recent."

— Arnold J. Toynbee
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"Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned."

— Milton Friedman
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"Because wherever I am today, I still owe it to God and I owe it to two men - the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X and of course, two very special women, my mother and my wife."

— Louis Farrakhan
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"I can say, Christ has been my only object; thank God, my righteousness too... Hold fast to Christ."

— John Nelson Darby
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