Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile our imagination to the bloody ritual which is prominent in almost every religion which has a strong sense of sin.
More Quotes from William Robertson Smith:
In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual.William Robertson Smith
That the God-man died for his people, and that His death is their life, is an idea which was in some degree foreshadowed by the older mystical sacrifices.
William Robertson Smith
We are so accustomed to think of religion as a thing between individual men and God that we can hardly enter into the idea of a religion in which a whole nation in its national organisation appears as the religious unit.
William Robertson Smith
The god, it would appear, was frequently thought of as the physical progenitor or first father of his people.
William Robertson Smith
This being so, it follows that mythology ought not to take the prominent place that is too often assigned to it in the scientific study of ancient faiths.
William Robertson Smith
The god can no more exist without his people than the nation without its god.
William Robertson Smith
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Based on Topics: Efforts Quotes, Sin QuotesBased on Keywords: reconcile, repulsive, ritual, sacrificial
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The price of justice is eternal publicity.
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Don't you know, priests, why our sermons do not touch the people's heart? Because we do not preach to the eyes, only to the ears.
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