RESONATING QUOTES:

Resonating Quotes:

ידעתי כי אין טוב בם כי אם לשמוח ולעשות טוב בחייו׃

"I have come to realise that nothing is better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live."
--'The Preacher' (Hebrew Tanakh Eccl. 3:12)

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
--Walt Whitman (poet)

"Song of Myself"

"Mathematics is the only subject where, once you have proved something, it is true for ever"
--Marcus du Sautoy (Mathematician)

"In a demon-haunted world, science is a candle in the dark."
-- Carl Sagan(1934-1996)

“Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.”
--Jules Verne (1828-1905)

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
--Upton Sinclair (author, 1935)

"Gedanken sind die Schatten unserer Empfindungen -- immer dunkler, leerer, einfacherer als diese “
("Thoughts are the shadows of our emotions/sensations —always darker, emptier, simpler than the latter.”)
--Friedrich Nietzsche, Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
--Stephen Hawking (physicist) (source)

"The kind of people we need in Washington won't go to Washington."
--Thomas Sowell (economist)

"Think twice before you think."
--ee cummings (poet)

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable."
--John F. Kennedy (US president)

"Η έναρξη της Σοφίας είναι ο καθορισμός των εκφράσεων "
(“The beginning of wisdom, is the definition of terms”)
--Socrates (philosopher)

"Notitia linguarum est prima porta sapientiae."
("Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom.")
--Roger Bacon (scientist)

"By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth."
--George Carlin (comedian)

"Ich fürchte, wir werden Gott nicht los, weil wir noch an die Grammatik glauben…"
("I am afraid we are not yet rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.")
--Friedrich Nietzsche (philosopher)
"Twilight of the Idols"

"Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!"
("That is not only not right, it is not even wrong.")
Wolfgang Pauli (physicist)

"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
Humpty Dumpty (from Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass" 1872)
 

As Christian churches in the USA and Europe continue to shrink, the word “Christians” captures fewer people. So to boost their tribal numbers, Christians can use the phrase “People of Faith” and include Jews, Hindus and Muslims into their gang.
[I am not quite sure what they do with Buddhists -- unless "faith" is used here to just mean "religion".]

Thus, “People of Faith” is broader, more inclusive than “Christian”. But the phrase makes the majority of Europeans and the many American agnostics, freethinkers, skeptics and atheists into “People without Faith” or “FaithLESS People”. Oh dear. That sounds horrible. So you can see why they created the new phrase .

Rhetoric is powerful — we need to stay alert. And so to counter this rhetorical manipulative phrase, I can imagine three strategies to manage the phrase:

1. Reject: Make fun of the phrase by changing it to something like “People of Superstition”
2. Co-op: Thus neutralizing by embracing it: “I am a person of faith too. I have faith in human cooperation and loving relationships.
3. Adopt: Agree with the accuser — “Indeed, I am a “person without faith”, or I am “Faith Free!”

Historically, these are three common strategies to deal with pejorative language — I am sure you could imagine how these strategies have been used to deal with racial terms.

Yes I can. 

MOST CERTAINLY! 

 I can. I can. I can.

 

Reversed Elders' Abuse