Some thoughts from the Life of Pi

[ERCougar]

I'm in the middle of "The Life of Pi" and have encountered a few interesting nuggets...

On doubt:
"Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."


On agnosticism:
"I can well imagine an atheist's last words: 'White, white! L-L-Love! My God!'--and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeast-less factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, 'Possible a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,' and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story."

On ecumenism:
"Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims."

Could it be that all world religions are just different ways of looking at the same thing, that is, God? It's as if we're all painting the same still-life, but from different points in the room. I would even include SU's secular humanism in this characterization.