"This is what it means to worship a state, to treat a state as an idol. It justifies itself no matter what it does. This is the moral catastrophe that has been unfolding slowly in Israel and in the American Jewish community simply has now reached a new kind of crescendo in which Israel, with America’s help, destroys an entire society and then says, well, the place is destroyed, so you’d better leave."

~ Peter Beinart

#Israel #Gaza #AmericanJews #morality #Zionism
/1

https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/the-banality-of-evil

To Ireland, With Love!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/w13pLP2MrtA

“we love you guys.” 🔥❤️

#Ireland #Palestine #Gratitude #Courage #Leadership #Support #UFC #Politics #Solidarity #AntiGenocide #Respect #Morality #Remember

"I am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others.

~ Mariann Budde

#Trump #BishopBudde #mercy #morality
/12

https://time.com/7209222/bishop-mariann-budde-trump/

As he reminds us that there's a long history in the US of religious leaders calling out presidents, John Nichols says,

"Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who stirred the wrath of Donald Trump and his conservative allies this week with a National Prayer Service homily that urged the newly inaugurated president “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” speaks a reflective and compassionate language of faith.

#Trump #BishopBudde #mercy #morality
/11

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/mariann-budde-trump-sermon-reaction/

"Remember this moment. Remember that asking for mercy toward scared children and immigrants was enough to trigger a full-scale campaign of intimidation from the highest levels of government and media. Remember that a sitting congressman suggested deporting an American citizen for the crime of asking the president to be kind."

#Trump #BishopBudde #mercy #morality
/10

"Right-wing media launched an all-out assault on Budde that revealed exactly how power plans to deal with dissent in Trump's second term. …

All of this—the full machinery of right-wing outrage—deployed against a religious leader who simply asked for kindness toward vulnerable people. The disproportionate response tells us exactly what we're dealing with."

~ Parker Molloy

#Trump #BishopBudde #mercy #morality
/9

https://www.readtpa.com/p/the-price-of-speaking-up-in-trumps

Whether you're religious or anti-religious, if you want to convince me that you have something good to offer me and others, if you approach me with violence, aggression, hostility, and supercilious arrogance, I will tune you out.

Because the world is full of those things and those of us repulsed by them seek alternatives to them from anyone promising us good solutions, not echoes of them.

#religion #morality #community #welcome #violence #cruelty
/8

I agree with Jessica Grose. Religious bodies can exercise great cruelty and do horrific injustice. I know this personally as someone who has worked for church institutions and experienced deplorable discrimination in them.

Religious people have much to learn from non-religious and anti-religious people including atheists. One can be a profoundly moral person and have no religious faith at all.

#religion #morality #community #welcome #violence #cruelty
/6

"Religious institutions are certainly not the only potential avenue for meaning, purpose and value in society. But we can’t underestimate the power of their reach, even in an increasingly secular world. When they have epic moral failures, it affects all of us, because it makes everyone more suspicious of potentially welcoming communities."

#religion #morality #community #welcome #violence #cruelty
/5

"As a secular, mildly observant Jew, I don’t feel strongly about whether other Americans attend religious services or believe in God. But I do care about the pervasive — and honestly, warranted — cynicism that young people have about religious institutions, because I think it is contributing to a more disconnected, careless and cruel society."

#religion #morality #community #welcome #violence #cruelty
/4

Jessica Grose notes the compelling reasons many younger people are turning their backs on organized religion — she points, in particular, to the horror show of sexual abuse of minors and its coverup in the Catholic church.

But she laments the effects of this rejection of religious institutions for the following reasons:

#religion #morality #community #welcome #violence #cruelty
/3

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/opinion/religious-institutions-church.html

Jennifer Rubin notes that a number of other US and world religious leaders have also spoken out about what Trump and the Republicans are doing, and concludes,

"Trump’s actions are not just lawless; they defy our deepest religious values."

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/trumps-actions-are-not-just-lawless

And John Pavolvitz calls on other religious leaders to defend Bishop Budde and speak out.

https://johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/dont-let-bishop-budde-stand-alone

#Trump #BishopBudde #mercy #morality
/2

A God who is busy with all human affairs and looks like a man is only the imagination of people who are not too deep in fantasy. He is needed at their level of faith, as they need a place to concentrate and plead, as mediators - priests. Millions of people still require religion, otherwise they would be deprived of any faith at all and therefore of the moral foundations without which states and cities cannot exist. That is why, while people are still very ignorant, we guard the ancient beliefs, although we ourselves have rid ourselves of prejudices and superstitions. Few people, even among wise rulers, know that the morality of the people, their education in dignity and respect for ancestors, labor and beauty is more important than anything else for the fate of people and the state. More important than fighting machines, elephants, armored warriors, five-row ships... All this collapses when the morality and education of the people fall. Little and big people fall into drunkenness and wild amusements. Faith, honor and dignity drown in wine, love for the fatherland and traditions of their ancestors disappear. Thus perished many kingdoms of Mesopotamia. Persia, the doom of Egypt, Hellas, Carthage and the new, formidable with its legions of Rome. The main thing on which man stands is not weapons, not war, but morality, the laws of behavior among other people and the whole nation.

Thais of Athens

#religion #faith #morality #study #knowledge for #future

« The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance. »

— Epicurus

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/736993407296274432/the-just-man-is-most-free-from-disturbance-while

#quotes #Epicurus #justice #serenity #ataraxia #InnerPeace #virtue #morality

« The greatest reward of righteousness is peace of mind. »

— Epicurus

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/736913081709608960/the-greatest-reward-of-righteousness-is-peace-of

#quotes #Epicurus #righteousness #morality #tranquility #serenity #PeaceOfMind #MoralExcellence #ataraxis #virtue

« Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. »

— Aristotle

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/736822768317988864/moral-excellence-comes-about-as-a-result-of-habit

#quotes #Aristotle #morality #excellence #justice #bravery #temperance #habit

« (…) that morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible. »

― Abraham Joshua Heschel

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/769159205650415616/that-morally-speaking-there-is-no-limit-to

#quotes #AbrahamJoshuaHeschel #good #evil #morality #responsibility

« Good can imagine Evil, but Evil cannot imagine Good. »

― W. H. Auden

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/768062286789246976/good-can-imagine-evil-but-evil-cannot-imagine

#quotes #WHAuden #morality #good #evil #imagination #ignorance

« Good deeds remain good, no matter whether we know how the world was made or not. Vile deeds are vile, no matter whether we know or do not know what, after death, will be the fate of the doer. We know, at least, what his fate is now, namely, to be wedded to the vileness. »

― Felix Adler

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/767972605180493824/good-deeds-remain-good-no-matter-whether-we-know

#quotes #FelixAdler #morality #good #evil

« A good End cannot sanctifie evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it. »

― William Penn

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/767880948789526528/a-good-end-cannot-sanctifie-evil-means-nor-must

#quotes #WilliamPenn #morality #good #evil #purification

« Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. »

― Paul of Tarsus

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/767798418596937728/be-not-overcome-of-evil-but-overcome-evil-with

#quotes #PaulOfTarsus #StPaul #Good #Evil #morality #purity #maturity

« … Unlimited possibilities are not suited to man; if they existed, his life would only dissolve in the boundless… »

— I Ching Hexagram #60

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/742973426906562561/in-nature-there-are-fixed-limits-for-summer-and

#quotes #iching #limitation #morality #duty

« The question for anyone to decide, who hesitates between good and evil, is whether he aspires to be a full-weight man, or merely the fragment, nay, the counterfeit of a man. Only he who ceaselessly aims at moral completeness is, in the true sense, a human being. »

― Felix Adler

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/767705023896535041/the-question-for-anyone-to-decide-who-hesitates

#quotes #FelixAdler #morality #maturity #humanity #good #evil