Condemn Injustice

 

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never
be a time when we fail to protest.
- Elie Wiesel

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

If everyone howled at every injustice,
every act of barbarism, every act of unkindness,
then we would be taking the first step towards a real humanity.
- Nelson DeMille

Don't make the mistake of thinking that you have to
agree with people and their beliefs to defend them from injustice.
- Bryant H. McGill

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth
and compassion against injustice and lying and greed.
If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.
- William Faulkner

When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.
-Steve Maraboli

If you are neutral in situations of injustice,
you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
- Desmond Tutu
            

The Form of God

I don't doubt God. I have firm faith absolutely in God.
It's religion I'm doubting.
- Bono

How can God be so many different things to different people? How can God be a young Jewish man to some, an ancient male figure to others, and a female or an eagle or have eight arms or be formless for others? And how about having three forms simultaneously (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost)?  How can God be the incarnation of peace and love for some, while embody justice and divine retribution for others? How can God be, for some people, someone/something that intervenes in each human's life on a daily basis, while for others God is more distant and does not micromanage our lives. How about free will and/or predestination?

Of course there are many theories. The most common belief is that exactly one of these views toward God is real, while all the others are false, and often viewed as intentionally heretical falsehoods. And of course many other people believe all ideas of any "god" to be strictly human inventions.

Personally, I believe that God is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Benevolent (although that seldom means that we get what we want). Being omnipotent, God can and does appear to each of us bearing exactly the characteristics (form and message) that best serve us individually. Those who need love see love. Those who need justice see justice. Those who need a "personal" God get that. Those who need a distant beacon to mark the goal get that.

For me, this idea that God can be everything and anything to each of us drives my commitment to honor all people and to respect each of their beliefs about God.

God's Spirit moves through us and the world at a pace
that can never be constricted by any one religious paradigm. I love that.
- Bono

We must be ready to learn from one another,
not claiming that we alone possess all truth
and that somehow we have a corner on God.
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

God has no religion.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Religion is a blessing when, and only when,
it provides a focus for a compassionate community
to minister to its members and to the world at large.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Religion as a human phenomenon is as riddled through
with potential for both good and evil as any other phenomenon.
- Richard John Neuhaus

We can never be the better for our religion
if our neighbor is the worse for it.
- Anonymous

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity
are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully
as when they do it from religious conviction.
- Blaise Pascal

It is only partly true that religion does more harm than good in society.
The community makes God into the image it wants,
vengeful, or milky sweet, or scrupulously just, and so on.
- Mary Douglas

A common denominator of all religions
is that they have the power
to bring out both the best and the worst in people.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I never considered a difference of opinion
in politics, in religion, in philosophy,
as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
- Thomas Jefferson

Further reading: Perspectives on the Nature of God

Many Religions, One Divine
     

Understanding, Love, and Compassion for All

The following quotes are by the Most Rev. Dr. Desmond Tutu in his new book God Is Not A Christian: And Other Provocations. Archbishop Tutu has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, and the Gandhi Peace Prize

We must hold to our particular and peculiar beliefs tenaciously, not pretending that all religions are the same, for they are patently not the same. We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.

We are supposed to proclaim the God of love, but we have been guilty as Christians of sowing hatred and suspicion; we commend the one whom we call the Prince of Peace, and yet as Christians we have fought more wars than we care to remember. We have claimed to be a fellowship of compassion and caring and sharing, but as Christians we often sanctify sociopolitical systems that belie this, where the rich grow ever richer and the poor grow ever poorer, where we seem to sanctify a furious competitiveness, ruthless as can only be appropriate to the jungle.

The answer? Understanding, Love, and Compassion for All.