"The moment I step out of my adult identity, it becomes obvious that my tribe is not significantly different from other tribes in its habitual projection of blame for conflict onto an enemy. It is disturbing for an individual to reject the tribe’s claim to self-righteousness because it excludes him or her from the civil religion, the social immortality system, and the ritual of scapegoating, in which guilt is alleviated by being assigned to an outcast or enemy that the tribe may destroy in the name of God."
React to this quote
More by Sam Keen
See allResonant Thoughts
"I have not read Nietzsche or Ibsen, nor any other philosopher, and have not needed to do it, and have not desired to do it; I have gone to the fountain-head for information—that is to say, to the huma…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"I want to feel my own nothingness, I want to give myself up in absolute resignation to God, to lie prostrat…"
— Thomas Chalmers"Elijah, when he entered into rivalry with the prophets of Baal became one of them, because God is not to be…"
— James Alison"The fireside is an emblem of the future heavenly home...To obtain the highest conception of the calling of …"
— Karl G. Maeser"Oh, come on. Revelation was a mushroom dream that belonged in the Apocrypha. The New Testament is basically…"
— Terry Pratchett"In Islam, there is no difference between the state and the religion. The religion is the state, the state i…"
— Brigitte Gabriel"The first of the "request" prayers in the daily Amidah is a fractal. It replicates in miniature the structu…"
— Jonathan Sacks
Related Thinkers
Related Topics
Deep Dives
- Baruch Spinoza on religion
- Thomas Carlyle on religion
- Friedrich Nietzsche on religion
- Immanuel Kant on religion
- Aristotle on religion
- Arthur Schopenhauer on religion
- Michel de Montaigne on religion
- Ludwig Wittgenstein on religion
- Baruch Spinoza on philosophy
- Baruch Spinoza on knowledge
- knowledge & Beauty
- knowledge & Change