The courage to be true
May 14, 2012 by Bill
“This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” Hamlet
The courage it takes to “be true to thine own self” is enormous. We have pressure from all sides to be everything other than our true selves. Pressure is often constant from family, peers, friends, society, relatives for us to be what “they” want us to be. Or that we do whatever it is “they” want us to do. The pressures of society can keep us divorced from ourselves for our entire lives.
One of the giant Federal Judges of our history addressed this problem. Learned Hand wrote: “Since our ancestors rose upon their hind legs to become Homo sapiens there have never been so many people who ate alike, slept alike, hated alike, loved alike, wore the same clothes and used the same furniture in the same houses, went to the same games and saw the same plays, read the same books and magazines, went to the same church and believed in the same God, and yet were all confidently assured that they were individuals and independent.”
There was an American giant of letters. He was admired over the entire world for his brilliance in thought and writing. His name was Ralph Waldo Emerson. He wrote of this problem of being true “to thine own self” in one of his most remarkable and penetrating essays. It is a very simple, direct answer to what you must do if you make the courageous choice to be true to yourself.
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Women without superstition
May 6, 2012 by Bill
Women Without Superstition: No Gods – No Masters, by Annie Laurie Gaylor, is a very moving, educational and inspirational book. Ninety women are portrayed, women who had virtually no status or respect as individuals. And yet, what a tremendous difference they made in the life of our nation as they challenged the Christian church, the clergy and organized, orthodox religion.
Two women in the book are such inspiring examples of courage, guts, intelligence and integrity.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON wrote: “We need the courage to go to the source and strike the blow at the fountain of all tyranny, religious superstition, priestly power and canon law. I can tell you that the happiest period of my life has been since I emerged from the shadows and superstitions of the old theologies.”
She was the author of the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women’s right to vote. She was the first to call for women’s suffrage in the United States. She fought tirelessly to free women from legal constraints and from the blight of religious superstition.
Stanton wrote and said over and over again, “When women understand that religion is a human invention, and that bibles, prayer books, catechisms and encyclical letters are all only emanations from the brain of a man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of “thus saith the Lord.”
She said again and again in every way possible that the bible has been used by men for the purpose of keeping women in a state of subjection.
Throughout her life, Elizabeth Cady Stanton suffered abuses and humiliations, and yet she never faltered in her commitment to truth and the emancipation of women, for humanity’s sake.
MARGARET SANGER wrote: “If Christianity turned the clock of general progress back a thousand years, it turned back the clock two thousand years for women. Its greatest outrage upon her was to forbid her to control the function of motherhood under any circumstances, thus limiting her life’s work to bringing forth and rearing children. Coincident with this, the churchmen deprived her of her place in and before the courts., in the schools, in art and society.”
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Albert Einstein and the Dalai Lama – kindred souls
April 29, 2012 by Bill
Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for his THEORY OF PHOTOELECTRICITY, and of course his THEORY OF RELATIVITY is known throughout the world.
His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, is the head of state and also the spiritual leader of Tibet.
In every other area of life and living, apart from physics, these two men were truly kindred souls with shared views on almost every subject identical.
The Dalai Lama said, “I am NOT a Buddhist. I live by the principles found in many of the great spiritual traditions” and “We can live without religion and meditation. This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy or theology. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple.”
Albert Einstein said the same thing in these words, “Teachers of religion must have the stature and integrity to give up the archaic and superstitious concept of a ‘personal’ God that has brought fear and monumental harm to individual human beings.” “I believe in a ‘cosmic’ religion that has no creeds, dogmas, doctrines or churches.”
Both men put “compassion” and “love” at the center of their belief system, a guide to the living of their days, a guide that brought happiness into their lives.
“Man’s ethical behavior should be effectively grounded on compassion, nurture and social bonds. What is moral is not divine, but a purely human matter.” Einstein
“Love and compassion are the true religions to me. But to develop this we DO NOT NEED TO BELIEVE IN ANY RELIGION.” The Dali Lama
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