Word: piousness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Discourses to Livy, Machiavelli points out that he lives in a secular, not a pious world. Machiavelli's observation still holds true today. But if the rights of the pious can be overturned at anyone's whim, the goal of increasing moral consciousness seems less attainable than ever...
Acevedo notes that the pope has been "revered since Christ made the apostle Peter the first pope almost two thousand years ago." Revered by whom? The countless millions of Muslims, Jews and Protestants slaughtered by and in the name of the Catholic Church? Or the pious Catholics who were bullied into donating huge sums to the church to fund the lavish lifestyles of the clergy? While these were not the Pope's personal doings, his failure to stop them did not earn him the reverence of the sufferers...
...course of fiscal discipline lasting eight or 10 or 15 years? A mere five years is longer than a presidential term. This means that even a five-year deadline imposes no real political accountability. In our political system, a promise to diet over five years is barely a pious wish. A promise to diet over a longer period isn't even that...
Surely the Lord shall visit the pious and shall call the righteous by name. His spirit shall hover over the poor; by his strength he shall renew the faithful. He shall glorify the pious upon the throne of the eternal kingdom. He shall release the captives, restore sight to the blind, make straight those who are bent double . . . He shall heal the wounded, resurrect the dead, preach glad tidings to the poor...
There was another reason for the separation of church and state, which no amount of pious ranting can expunge: not all the Founding Fathers believed in the same God, or in any God at all. Yes, the Declaration of Independence refers to a deity, but only in the most generic terms -- "Nature's God," the "Creator," "Providence" -- calculated not to offend the doubters and deists (who believed that God had designed the universe, then left it to nature to run). Jefferson was a renowned doubter, urging his nephew to "question with boldness even the existence of a God." John Adams...