How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Listen to me, Laura, he said. That preacher does not speak for God. No man does. Go back to sleep and wake up in the morning with me just a strong dream urging you to put him behind you. He means you no good. Set your mind on it. (5.96)
Cold Mountain is deeply respectful of spirituality; that doesn't mean it won't criticize someone who's doing a bad thing and blaming it on religion.
Quote #5
When they began planting, Ruby had held out a handful of tiny black seeds. Looks like not much, she said. It takes faith to jump from this to a root cellar filled with turnips some many weeks hence. That and a warm fall, for we started late. (6.2)
Seemingly ordinary things are the stuff of faith for Ruby, a practical character who can nonetheless see the wonder in nature. Sounds kind of like Jesus' parables, though Ruby rarely goes to church.
Quote #6
The crops were growing well, largely, Ruby claimed, because they had been planted, at her insistence, in strict accordance with the signs. In Ruby's mind, everything—setting fence posts, making sauerkraut, killing hogs—fell under the rule of the heavens. Cut firewood in the old of the moon, she'd advised, otherwise it won't do much but fry and hiss at you come winter […] Monroe would have dismissed such beliefs as superstition, folklore. But Ada, increasingly covetous of Ruby's learning in the ways living things inhabited this particular place, chose to view the signs as metaphoric. They were, as Ada saw them, an expression of stewardship, a means of taking care, a discipline. They provided a ritual of concern for the patterns and tendencies of the material world where it might be seen to intersect with some other world. Ultimately, she decided, the signs were a way of being alert, and under those terms she could honor them. (6.3-4)
If Nature is your mother, then Ada figures you should listen to what she says; it's like trusting your mom's advice not to throw light and dark clothes in the same washer. This is one of many moments in the book when paying attention to nature is seen as a form of spiritual experience.