it’s my father’s favorite quote.
It’s not from the bible (or maybe it is, I just didn’t read it),
it’s like his personal philosophy.
I’m not going to tell you who my father is, I already talked about him enough in other posts and replies.
I don’t know what he means by his personal quote, but I wonder if such a saying is only followed by a very small and marginalized group of people.
maybe a few hundred thousand probably?
Based on recent polling data, it’s somewhere north of 80 million in this country.
As a child I was taught that I was “nothing” without God, that “all good and perfect things come from above, from the Father of Lights”, etc. Utter dependence on God for everything. So yeah it might not always be front and center or stated exactly as your father did, but it’s the general idea of the ideology. You are a lowly worm but for the grace (unmerited favor) of God. And so by extension everyone outside the faith is a lowly worm, a blasphemer, an idolater, etc.
It is at the core of evangelicalism, which is about 17% of Christianity worldwide and about twice that in the US.
It can be plausibly argued that it is at the root of the Abrahamic religions generally, even if somewhat “gentled” or adapted to the surrounding cultures. But the fact that modern secular society has tentatively “tamed” a good portion of Christianity just means that society has a never-ending energy suck to maintain that, IMO.
it’s less authoritarian than my mother’s quote (it’s less of a philosophy and more of something she repeats a lot whenever I do something stupid as a kid)
Do not touch what is not yours. DO NOT QUESTION the answers you are given to things you are not supposed to touch.
I’ve always thought Christians take themselves a tad bit too seriously with their literature and poetry (the bible).