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Vine Deloria Jr. Quotes

1933–2005

Vine Deloria Jr. (26 March 1933 – 3 November 2005) was a Native American author, theologian, historian, and activist.

Also known as: Vine Deloria

Random Vine Deloria Jr. quote

9 quotes

Most tribal religions make no pretense as to their universality.

God Is Red (1973)

Besides the importance of land and religion, the existence of a specific religion among a distinct group of people is probably a fundamental element of human experience.

God Is Red (1973)

Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent.

Foreword to Words of Power: Voices from Indian America (1994)

When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, "Ours."

When ecologists find a predictable life-span of a generation separating us from total extinction, it would seem that we have a duty to search for another interpretation of mankind’s life story.

The idea that religion was conceived as originally designed for a particular people relating to a specific god falls well within the experiences of the rest of humankind and may conceivably be considered a basic factor in the existence of religion.

God Is Red (1973)

The very conception of a Chosen People implies a lost religious ethnicity. Most likely religions do not in fact cross national and ethnic lines without losing their power and identity. It is probably more in the nature of things to have different groups with different religions

God Is Red (1973)

The breakup of Christianity during the Reformation into national churches and the proliferation of denominations today would seem to indicate that a religious universality cannot be successfully maintained across racial and ethnic lines. ... Ethnicity will almost always triumph.

God Is Red (1973)

Religion is for people who’re afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who’ve already been there.

Misattributed

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Vine Deloria Jr. (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.