Sort by:
Newest First
|
Rating
Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. Wikis give us a place where anyone who is kind, thoughtful and intelligent can come and join us in building a better and more rational world.
There are a whole lot of religious people in America, including the majority of Democrats. When we abandon the field of religious discourse—when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome—others will fill the vacuum. And those who do are likely to be those with the most insular views of faith, or who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.
Source (click to close)
Source type: Book
Audacity of Hope
http://
Contribution #2533
What you should say to outsiders is that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our Association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself shall not stand upon it. (on women's suffrage)
Source (click to close)
No source entered for Contribution #2428
My call for a spiritual revolution is not a call for a religious revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow otherworldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather it is a call for a radical reorientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self. It is a call to turn toward the wider community of beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognizes others' interests alongside our own.
Source (click to close)
Source type: Book
Ethics for the New Millenium
Page 13-14
Published by Riverhead Books
, New York
, 1999
http://
Contribution #2395
Western liberal humanism is not something that comes naturally to us: like an appreciation of art or poetry, it has to be cultivated. Humanism is itself a religion without God—not all religions, of course, are theistic. Our ethical secular ideal has it's own disciplines of mind and heart and gives people the means of finding faith in the ultimate meaning of human life that were once provided by the more conventional religions.
Throughout the nineteenth century the True, the Good, and the Beautiful preserved their precarious existence in the minds of earnest atheists. But their very earnestness was their undoing, since it made it possible for them to stop at a halfway house. Pragmatists explained that Truth is what it pays to believe. Historians of morals reduced the Good to a matter of tribal custom. Beauty was abolished by the artists in a revolt against the insipidities of a philistine epoch and in a mood of fury in which satisfaction is to be derived only from what hurts. And so the world was swept clear not only of God as a person but of God's essence as an ideal to which man owed an ideal allegiance; while the individual, as a result of crude and uncritical interpretation of sound doctrines, was left without any defense against social pressure.
Source (click to close)
No source entered for Contribution #1783
Our problems are not solved
by physical force,
by hatred,
by war
Our problems are solved
by loving kindness
by gentleness,
by joy
Source (click to close)
Source type: Book
Heart of a Buddha
Published by Amitabha Publications
, Temple City, CA
, 2003
http://
Contribution #1456
All ancient books which have once been called sacred by man, will have their lasting place in the history of mankind, and those who possess the courage, the perseverance, and the self-denial of the true miner, and of the true scholar, will find even in the darkest and dustiest shafts what they are seeking for,--real nuggets of thought, and precious jewels of faith and hope.
In the past, the respect people had for religion meant that ethical practice was maintained through a majority following one religion or another. But this is no longer the case. We must therefore find some other way of establishing basic ethical principles.
Source (click to close)
Source type: Book
Ethics for the New Millennium
by Dalai Lama
Page 20
http://
Contribution #1366
...it becomes clear that, given our diversity, no single religion satisfies all humanity. ... And since the majority does not practice religion, I am concerned to try to find a way to serve all humanity without appealing to religious faith.
Source (click to close)
Source type: Book
Ethics for the New Millennium
by 14th Dalai Lama
Page 20
http://
Contribution #1365
I want to show that there are indeed some universal ethical principles which could help everyone to achieve the happiness we all aspire to.
Source (click to close)
Source type: Book
Ethics for the New Millennium
by 14th Dalai Lama
Page 22
http://
Contribution #1364
The
love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the
border?
Perhaps only when people can enjoy their differences as a
resource of cultural enrichment do they become truly
civilized.
My call for a spiritual revolution is thus not a call for a religious
revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow
other-worldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather, it is a
call for a radical re-orientation away from our habitual preoccupation with
self towards concern for the wider community of beings with whom we are
connected, and for conduct which recognizes others interests alongside our
own.
Life, when fully lived under a variety of cultural conditions, can be euphoric and optimistic; it can be a joy to experience and a wonder to behold.
The great fault of all ethics hitherto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal only with the relations of man to man. In reality, however, the question is what is his attitude to the world and all life that comes within his reach. A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, and that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help. Only the universal ethic of the feeling of responsibility in an ever-widening sphere for all that livesonly that ethic can be founded in thought. The ethic of Reverence for Life, therefore, comprehends within itself everything that can be described as love, devotion, and sympathy whether in suffering, joy, or effort.
Source (click to close)
Source type: Website
Albert Schweitzer
Viewed on April 13, 2008
Contribution #638
What does universal ethics look like in a person?
(0 responses)
