So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” - John 3:6-8 You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. If we wish to be true to ourselves, - if we wish to benefit our fellow-men - if we wish to live honorable lives - we will give to every other human being every right that we claim for ourselves.BIBLE VERSE OF THE DAY: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. All the known truths of this world - all the philosophy, all the poems, all the pictures, all the statues, all the entrancing music - the prattle of babes, the lullaby of mothers, the words of honest men, the trumpet calls to duty - all these make up the bible of the world - everything that is noble and true and free, you will find in this great book. What we want is the truth, and does any one suppose that all of the truth is confined in one book - that the mysteries of the whole world are explained by one volume?Īll that is - all that conveys information to man - all that has been produced by the past - all that now exists - should be considered by an intelligent man. The liberty of man is of far more importance than any book the rights of man, more sacred than any religion - than any Scriptures, whether inspired or not. The body and soul of man - these are sacred. What is holy, what is sacred? I reply that human happiness is holy, human rights are holy. If you send men to the penitentiary for speaking their thoughts, for endeavoring to enlighten their fellows, then the penitentiary will become a place of honor, and the victim will step from it - not stained, not disgraced, but clad in robes of glory. Neither can the whole world convince me that any man should be punished, either in this world or in the next, for being candid with his fellow-men. It is impossible to satisfy me that there is any God, or can be any God, who holds in abhorrence a soul that has the courage to express his thought. Kontekst: Gentlemen, you can never make me believe - no statute can ever convince me, that there is any infinite Being in this universe who hates an honest man. Force does not heal old wounds it opens new ones. To those I say, this is not idealism, but rather realism, because history has taught us that war rarely resolves our differences. Some would say that it is too idealistic to believe in a society based on tolerance and the sanctity of human life, where borders, nationalities and ideologies are of marginal importance. Hinduism recognizes the entire universe as one family.īuddhism calls on us to cherish the oneness of all creation. Islam declares that killing one person unjustly is the same as killing all of humanity. Judaism asks that we value the beauty and joy of human existence.Ĭhristianity says we should treat our neighbours as we would be treated. There is no religion that was founded on intolerance - and no religion that does not value the sanctity of human life. Shakespeare speaks of every single member of that family in The Merchant of Venice, when he asks: "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" And we have experienced first hand the unique nature of the human family and the common values we all share. My wife and I have spent half our lives in the North, half in the South. Kontekst: I am an Egyptian Muslim, educated in Cairo and New York, and now living in Vienna.
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