#persecution

Wenn wir uns der Verfolgung des freien Geistes während der Diktatur besinnen, werden wir die Freiheit jedes Gedankens und jeder Kritik schützen, so sehr sie sich auch gegen uns selbst richten mag." [Ansprache am 8. Mai 1985 in der Gedenkstunde im Plenarsaal des Deutschen Bundestages] ↗

— Richard von Weizsäcker

#democracy #dictatorship #freedom #persecution #politics

Bless them that persecute you.' If our enemy cannot put up with us any longer and takes to cursing us, our immediate reaction must be to lift up our hands and bless him. Our enemies are the blessed of the Lord. Their curse can do us no harm. May their poverty be enriched with all the riches of God, with the blessing of Him whom they seek to oppose in vain. We are ready to endure their curses so long as they redound to their blessing. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#curse #forgive #forgiveness #god #love

I remember one Gentleman objected to the Christian Faith, that it made Men insolent, quarrelsom and ill-natur'd. From whence I concluded, (as I told him) that he had never read over the Gospells; truly he could not say that he had read 'em carefully, but yet that in reading the History of what had passed in Christendom, he observed that most of the Quarrels in which this part of the World had been engaged, arose from contentions among the Christian Priesthood. Church-History is chiefly a relation of Church-mens Wrangles, and D. Cave in a late Book of his has denominated every Century from some eminent Quarrel which arose among the Clergy. But besides this, what was the Holy War, what all the holy Massacres and Croisados which filled Europe with Blood, but the Inventions of the Holy Church? And what is holy Inquisition, but a perpetual Series of Murthers carry'd on in barbarous Forms of Law against the common Sense of Mankind? Does History account for any Barbarities so great as those committed by the Popes? Any Cruelties so savage as those of the Holy Inquisition? Any Murthers so solemn, and religiously brutal as the Acts of Faith? Any Pragmaticalness so insufferable as that of the Jesuits? is not their Humanity extinguished by their Christian Religion? Such is their Malice that no Man can eat Bread where they have to do, unless he submit his Faith to their guidance, witness the present French Persecution. ↗

— William Stephens

#crusades #deism #jesuits #murder #persecution

Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil's propagation. ↗

— Hosea Ballou

#persecution #propagation #religion #requires #sustain

Jewish persecution is a historical memory of the present generation and people fear it in the present day, and that's why those references are so much more powerful. I just understand that better now. ↗

— Gregg Easterbrook

#better now #day #fear #generation #historical

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution. ↗

— George Eliot

#man #may #opposition #persecution #sweet

Knowledge of God's Word is a bulwark against deception, temptation, accusation, even persecution. ↗

— Edwin Louis Cole

#against #bulwark #deception #even #god

Persecution is the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it. ↗

— Howard Mumford Jones

#because #criticism #easier #first #first law

Religious tolerance is something we should all practice; however, there have been more persecution and atrocities committed in the name of religion and religious freedom than anything else. ↗

— Walter Koenig

#atrocities #been #committed #else #freedom

The Christians tried to separate themselves from the Jewish crowd so they wouldn't be the recipients of the persecution of the Romans. And the way they did it was to say, the Jews killed our hero too. And so Christians began to define themselves over against the orthodox party of the Jews as a way of surviving against the Roman onslaught. ↗

— John Shelby Spong

#began #christians #crowd #define #did