Dan Brown

God, grant me strength to accept those things I cannot change.

Isn__ antimatter what fuels the U.S.S.Enterprise?

Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning.''I understand the concept. It's just . . . there seems to be a contradiction.''Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man's starvation, war, sickness . . .''Exactly!' Chartrand knew the camerlengo would understand. 'Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn't He?'The camerlengo frowned. 'Would He?'Chartrand felt uneasy. Had he overstepped his bounds? Was this one of those religious questions you just didn't ask? 'Well . . . if God loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help.''Do you have children, Lieutenant?'Chartrand flushed. 'No, signore.''Imagine you had an eight-year-old son . . . would you love him?''Of course.''Would you let him skateboard?'Chartrand did a double take. The camerlengo always seemed oddly "in touch" for a clergyman. 'Yeah, I guess,' Chartrand said. 'Sure, I'd let him skateboard, but I'd tell him to be careful.''So as this child's father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?''I wouldn't run behind him and mollycoddle him if that's what you mean.''But what if he fell and skinned his knee?''He would learn to be more careful.'The camerlengo smiled. 'So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child's pain, you would choose to show your love by letting him learn his own lessons?''Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It's how we learn.'The camerlengo nodded. 'Exactly.

She lay outside in the courtyard, staring up at the raindrops_ feeling them hit her body_ trying to guess where one would land next. The nuns called again, threatening that pneumonia might make an insufferably headstrong child a lot less curious about nature.

Every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith__cceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school. Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors.Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that we have proof the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.

God answers all prayers, but sometimes his answer is 'no'.

Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this: when we as a species abandon our trust in a power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faiths_ all faiths_ are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable. With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. The church consists of a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.

Forgive them, you might say, for they know not what they do. But there comes a moment in history when ignorance is no longer a forgivable offense, a moment when only wisdom has the power to absolve.

_In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves.

Outside the window, a bank of clouds appeared on the horizon, inching slowly across the sky, finally slipping across the Moon and blocking out its radiant light. As he clicked off his overhead light, he turned his eyes one last time to the heavens. Outside, in the newly fallen darkness, the world had been transformed. The sky had become a glistening tapestry of stars.

Truth has power. And if we all gravitate toward similar ideas maybe we do so because those ideas are true... written deep within us. And when we hear the truth, even if we don't understand it, we feel the truth, even if we don't understand it, we feel that truth resonate within us... vibrating with our unconscious wisdom. Perhaps the truth us not learned by us, but rather, the truth is re-called... re-membered... re-cognized... as that which is already inside us.

Scientific advancement carries risk,_ Kohler argued. __t always has. Space programs, genetic research, medicine__hey all make mistakes. Science needs to survive its own blunders, at any cost. For everyone__ sake.__ittoria was amazed at Kohler__ ability to weigh moral issues with scientific detachment. His intellect seemed to be the product of an icy divorce from his inner spirit. __ou think CERN is so critical to the earth__ future that we should be immune from moral responsibility?

Truth has power. And if we all gravitate toward similar ideas, maybe we do so because those ideas are true...written deep within us. And when we hear the truth, even if we don't understand it, we feel that truth resonate within us...vibrating with our unconscious wisdom. Perhaps the truth is not learned by us, but rather, the truth is re-called...re-membered...-re-cognized...as that which is already inside us.

The measure of your faith is the measure of the pain you can endure.

History, if it has taught us anything at all, has taught us that the strange ideas we deride today will one day be our celebrated truths.

History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?

By its very nature, history is always a one-sided account.

We are creators, and yet we naively play the role of "the created." We see ourselves as helpless sheep buffeted around by the God who made us. We kneel like frightened children, begging for help, for forgiveness, for good luck. But once we realize that we are truly created in the Creator's image, we will start to understand that we, too, must be Creators. When we understand this fact, the doors will burst wide open for human potential.