“
As for what it's against - the story is against those who pervert and misuse religion, or any other kind of doctrine with a holy book and a priesthood and an apparatus of power that wields unchallengeable authority, in order to dominate and suppress human freedoms.
”
”
Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials)
“
They called it that, I mean 'democracy'.
”
”
Suman Pokhrel
“
Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
“
Power is confusing for us, perhaps even terrifying, because our relationship with it had an unfortunate beginning. Someone in a position of power over us used and abused us…It seems as if power were something to be wielded, always at someone’s expense, usually our own.
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”
Maureen Brady (Beyond Survival: A Writing Journey for Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse)
“
Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
“
Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience. It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that isn't even working in the military and can never substitute for personal morality.
”
”
Joan D. Chittister
“
[Science] works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are
worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be. The obvious is sometimes false; the unexpected is sometimes true.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
“
Power makes people ignore your sins. There is not much difference between acquiring power and achieving sainthood.
”
”
Shon Mehta (The Timingila)
“
Many white Northerners wielded their power and voting pressure at home, even as they might have pressed for desegregation in the South, understanding that you didn't need a governor at a schoolhouse door if you had the Board of Education officials constantly readjusting school zoning lines to maintain segregated schools. You didn't need a burning cross if the bank used maps made by the Federal Housing Authority to mark Black neighborhoods as "dangerous" for investment and deny Black people home loans. You didn't need white vigilantes if the police were willing to protect and serve certain communities while containing and controlling others.
”
”
Jeanne Theoharis (A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History)
“
because translation frequently demands minor trade-offs of nuance, it’s wise to make use of multiple translations.
”
”
Mark L. Ward Jr. (Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible)
“
The problem of corrupt clergy haunts God’s family in every age. Priests who misuse and abuse their authority inflict untold damage upon the people of God.
”
”
Scott Hahn (A Father Who Keeps His Promises: God's Covenant Love in Scripture)
“
The failure to endow Treasury and the Fed with the authority to deal with the insolvency of a nonbank financial institution was the single most important policy failure of the crisis.
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Barry Eichengreen (Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses-and Misuses-of History)
“
The idea that the word of God should be permitted to calcify slowly into a language normal people can’t read is one of the reasons we had a Protestant Reformation, a movement launched by a monk whose first act a er defying a church council with, “My conscience is captive to the word of God” was to hole himself up in Wartburg castle and translate the Bible into German. There he sat; he could do no other.
”
”
Mark L. Ward Jr. (Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible)
“
The idea of “great and dangerous offenses” is an excellent shorthand for the views of the ratifiers—at least if we understand such offenses as including egregious abuses or misuses of official authority.
”
”
Cass R. Sunstein (Impeachment: A Citizen's Guide)
“
Every human is a magician, and in the interaction between the magicians, there are spells being cast everywhere. How? By misusing the word, by taking everything personally, by distorting everything we perceive with assumptions, by gossiping and spreading emotional poison with the word. Humans cast spells mainly upon the people we love the most, and the more authority we have, the more powerful the spells.
”
”
Miguel Ruiz (The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery (A Toltec Wisdom Book))
“
(Talking about the movement to deny the prevalence and effects of adult sexual exploitation of children)
So what does this movement consist of? Who are the movers and shakers? Well molesters are in it, of course. There are web pages telling them how to defend themselves against accusations, to retain confidence about their ‘loving and natural’ feelings for children, with advice on what lawyers to approach, how to complain, how to harass those helping their children. Then there’s the Men’s Movements, their web pages throbbing with excitement if they find ‘proof’ of conspiracy between feminists, divorcing wives and therapists to victimise men, fathers and husbands.
Then there are journalists. A few have been vitally important in the US and Britain in establishing the fightback, using their power and influence to distort the work of child protection professionals and campaign against children’s testimony. Then there are other journalists who dance in and out of the debates waggling their columns behind them, rarely observing basic journalistic manners, but who use this debate to service something else – a crack at the welfare state, standards, feminism, ‘touchy, feely, post-Diana victimhood’. Then there is the academic voice, landing in the middle of court cases or inquiries, offering ‘rational authority’. Then there is the government. During the entire period of discovery and denial, not one Cabinet minister made a statement about the prevalence of sexual abuse or the harm it caused.
Finally there are the ‘retractors’. For this movement to take off, it had to have ‘human interest’ victims – the accused – and then a happy ending – the ‘retractors’. We are aware that those ‘retractors’ whose parents trail them to newspapers, television studios and conferences are struggling. Lest we forget, they recanted under palpable pressure.
”
”
Beatrix Campbell (Stolen Voices: The People and Politics Behind the Campaign to Discredit Childhood Testimony)
“
To be sure, times change and applications may vary, but the original author’s meaning and intent and the subsequent principles derived from that are fixed and eternal. It is therefore necessary that we understand what these excerpts actually meant when they were written so we can apply them properly today.
”
”
Eric J. Bargerhuff (The Most Misused Verses in the Bible: Surprising Ways God's Word Is Misunderstood)
“
I see before me a person who is sacrificial, honest, and courageous; a good friend and family member, not cynical, not egotistical, but empathetic and good-hearted, who feels responsibility, is attentive, and is capable of keeping secrets, who does not misuse their power, does not gossip, and can master their ambition, who is just, demands quality, an internationalist and not envious, who generally behaves in a friendly way and does not judge others easily, who is persistent, has initiative, conscious of duty, critical, self-critical and conscientious, who relates well to learning or ignorance, and who is capable of self-education (self-perfection), who has self-control, who is sincere and strives for freedom for themself and others, whose ethics are at a similarly high level, who is modest, able to love others, who has solidarity, tolerance and politeness, has a healthy competitiveness, is helpful, peaceful, and well-intentioned, who shows
respect to those who merit it, etc. This kind of person is definitely an exemplary moral authority. Whoever has in themselves all of the qualities above to a high level is a moral genius, even if they never become a hero, and even if those around them never consider them to be one.
”
”
László Polgár (Bring Up Genius! (Nevelj zsenit!))
“
In the cult, the people in power dictate what cult members are to do. Children raised in cults are systematically stripped of their own autonomous power and forced to feel powerful only in the destructive context allowed by the cult, and always under the power of the leader. Ritual abuse survivors have had to learn to be outer oriented - to perceive what is expected of them and do that, whether it is healthy for them or not. When a therapist creates a context in which he or she is the leader, and the client is to listen, learn, and follow what the therapist says, the therapist has inadvertently replicated the power system of the cult.
That is not to say that the therapist has no power; the therapist has a lot of power, but the power the therapist has resides in authority based upon his or her expertise, knowledge, training and sensitivity. The point is to use this authority in a way in which the client can also begin to feel his or her own authority, and begin to develop a healthy feeling of power.
The word used quite often now is "empowerment." How do you empower a client?
”
”
Lynette S. Danylchuk
“
But Isabelle Lacoste had been in the Sûreté long enough to know how much easier it was to shoot than to talk. How much easier it was to shout than to be reasonable. How much easier it was to humiliate and demean and misuse authority than to be dignified and courteous, even to those who were themselves none of those things. How much more courage it took to be kind than to be cruel.
”
”
Louise Penny (How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #9))
“
The Christian church has preached a powerless gospel that has led countless people into a religious maze that goes nowhere. They have handcuffed the masses to a false God. The Bible has been misinterpreted and misused by religious leaders who claim to have spiritual authority, giving this bankrupt system a false air of legitimacy and credibility. I’m not pointing the finger; I was one of them. I was sincere, but I was sincerely wrong.
”
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Jim Palmer (Inner Anarchy: Dethroning God and Jesus to Save Ourselves and the World)
“
So back to a question I raised in the introduction: What Bible translation will I give my own kids? And the answer is: I won’t give them a single translation. I’ll train them, Lord willing, to appreciate multiple translations. Instead of expressing suspicion toward translations from other tribes, I will express curiosity and interest and gratitude. I’ll teach my progeny that there’s a good reason for the little differences between Bible translations.
”
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Mark L. Ward Jr. (Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible)
“
There is clear evidence from internal investigations in the past that some raters actually see themselves as adversaries to veterans. If a claim can be minimized, then the government has saved money, regardless of the need of the veteran. Just recently, the press exposed an official e-mail from a high-level staff person who stated in essence that PTSD diagnosis was becoming too prevalent and offered ways to delay and deflect ratings in order to save the government money.
”
”
Taylor Armstrong
“
Warning: “Good Intentions” contains violence, explicit sex, nudity, inappropriate use of church property, portrayals of beings divine and demonic bearing little or no resemblance to established religion or mythology, trespassing, bad language, sacrilege, blasphemy, attempted murder, arguable murder, divinely mandated murder, justifiable murder, filthy murder, sexual promiscuity, kidnapping, attempted rape, arson, dead animals, desecrated graves, gang activity, theft, assault and battery, panties, misuse of the 911 system, fantasy depictions of sorcery and witchcraft, multiple references to various matters of fandom, questionable interrogation tactics, cell phone abuse, reckless driving, consistent abuse of vampires (because they deserve it), even more explicit sex, illegal use of firearms within city limits, polyamory, abuse of authority, hit and run driving, destruction of private property, underage drinking, disturbances of the peace, disorderly conduct, internet harassment, bearers of false witness, mayhem, dismemberment, falsification of records, tax evasion, an uncomfortably sexy mother, bad study habits, and a very silly white guy inappropriately calling another white guy “nigga” (for which he will surely suffer). All characters depicted herein are over the age of 18, with the exception of one little girl who merely needs to get her cat out of a tree. Don’t worry, nothing bad happens to her. She makes it through the story just fine.
”
”
Elliott Kay (Good Intentions (Good Intentions, #1))
“
Justices in the United States believe that their duty is to uphold the Constitution, but if they do not understand that the authority of the Constitution itself rests upon the inalienable natural rights of all human beings, then they not only undermine the Constitution, which they are sworn to uphold but also turn themselves into wielders of arbitrary power. Regrettably, this misuse of power occurred in both the Dred Scott decision and in the Roe v. Wade decision (and its subsequent interpretation in cases such as Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Robert P. Casey).
”
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Robert J. Spitzer (Ten Universal Principles: A Brief Philosophy of the Life Issues)
“
There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to
”
”
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
“
There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
“
God has created the orders of community, that is, marriage and the family, economic activity, government and the state (see Rom. 13:1–7; 1 Tim. 2:1, 2). Satan, unable to create anything, tempts others to distort and misuse what God has created. Christians must discern whether a government is functioning under divine authority or as a divine authority. When the latter is the case, Christians must pray, courageously endure, and patiently accept the consequences of obeying the God whose image and seal they bear (see Mark 12:16, 17; Acts 4:19). They must do so in the confidence that after their victorious sufferings they will reign with Him.
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Jack W. Hayford (New Spirit-Filled Life Bible: Kingdom Equipping Through the Power of the Word, New King James Version)
“
Both experience and the Scriptures themselves teach us that the Bible is a powerful book, a life-changing book. But simply because the Bible is such a powerful book, it has been powerfully misused to cause great harm on earth.
• Bible passages have been quoted by men to justify the abuse of their wives and children.
• Bible teachings have been distorted by politicians to justify the pollution of the earth.
• Bible stories have been retold by church leaders to justify the hatred of other peoples.
It is so easy to acknowledge (rightly) the divine origin and authority of Scripture only to associate (wrongly) our own private agendas with some part of it.
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James C. Wilhoit (Discovering Lectio Divina: Bringing Scripture into Ordinary Life)
“
Many professionals have to sign gagging clauses or face the sack if they speak out. The social worker and therapist was familiar with the scare that revelation brings to the survivor. […]
We are in this story. It isn't ours, but we are in it nonetheless, not least because of the viscous campaign which has followed us over the last ten years. Any organisation with which we work may receive correspondence from the accused adults’ and ‘false memory’ movements. Some of these propagandists are confidentially dominating the professional and political arguments using new information technology to spread what we consider to be smears, innuendo and misinformation. P8
(refers to authors Beatrix Campbell & Judith Jones – a journalist and a social worker/therapist)
”
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Beatrix Campbell (Stolen Voices: The People and Politics Behind the Campaign to Discredit Childhood Testimony)
“
One of the most recent developments in comprehensive evangelical biblical interpretation was the “redemptive-movement hermeneutic” offered by William Webb.128 He called for evangelicals to move beyond what Scripture teaches and develop an ultimate ethic for the contemporary culture. Wayne Grudem argued that “Webb’s trajectory hermeneutic nullifies in principle the moral authority of the entire New Testament … creates an overly complex system of interpretation … [and] creates a system that is overly liable to subjective influence and therefore is indeterminate and will lead to significant misuse.”129 Indeed, Grudem concluded that Webb’s hermeneutical process was “entirely foreign to the way in which God intended the Bible to be read, understood, believed, and obeyed.”130
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Gregg R. Allison (Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine)
“
Bible translations succeed or fail based on Christian trust, because only a vanishingly small percentage of Bible readers can, and even fewer do, go through the laborious process of checking their English translations against the Greek and Hebrew. The vast majority of Bible readers simply take—they have to take—the word of others that the translations in their laps are faithful. When scholarly Christians and ministry-leading Christians go to battle over Bible translations, in dog fights far above the it’s-all-Greek-to-me heads of people in the pew, some of the flak falls on the flock. The sheep today have many resources—like this book—and can do some good homework, but if they can’t read the original languages of Scripture they must still take sides based largely on whom they trust.
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Mark L. Ward Jr. (Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible)
“
The people who support and defend those accused of child sexual abuse indiscriminately, those who join organizations dedicated to defending people who are accused of child sexual abuse with no screening whatsoever to keep out those who are guilty as charged are likewise not necessarily people engaged in an objective search for the truth. Some of them can and do use deceit, trickery, misstated research, harassment, intimidation, and charges of laundering federal money to silence their opponents.
Those of us who are the recipients of bogus lawsuits and frivolous ethics charges and phony phone calls and pickets outside our offices must know more than the research to survive such tactics. We must know something about endurance and about the importance of refusing to be intimidated.
Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998
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Anna C. Salter
“
Erroneous plurals of nouns, as vallies or echos.
Barbarous compound nouns, as viewpoint or upkeep.
Want of correspondence in number between noun and verb where the two are widely separated or the construction involved.
Ambiguous use of pronouns.
Erroneous case of pronouns, as whom for who, and vice versa, or phrases like “between you and I,” or “Let we who are loyal, act promptly.”
Erroneous use of shall and will, and of other auxiliary verbs.
Use of intransitive for transitive verbs, as “he was graduated from college,” or vice versa, as “he ingratiated with the tyrant.”
Use of nouns for verbs, as “he motored to Boston,” or “he voiced a protest.”
Errors in moods and tenses of verbs, as “If I was he, I should do otherwise,” or “He said the earth was round.”
The split infinitive, as “to calmly glide.”
The erroneous perfect infinitive, as “Last week I expected to have met you.”
False verb-forms, as “I pled with him.”
Use of like for as, as “I strive to write like Pope wrote.”
Misuse of prepositions, as “The gift was bestowed to an unworthy object,” or “The gold was divided between the five men.”
The superfluous conjunction, as “I wish for you to do this.”
Use of words in wrong senses, as “The book greatly intrigued me,” “Leave me take this,” “He was obsessed with the idea,” or “He is a meticulous writer.”
Erroneous use of non-Anglicised foreign forms, as “a strange phenomena,” or “two stratas of clouds.”
Use of false or unauthorized words, as burglarize or supremest.
Errors of taste, including vulgarisms, pompousness, repetition, vagueness, ambiguousness, colloquialism, bathos, bombast, pleonasm, tautology, harshness, mixed metaphor, and every sort of rhetorical awkwardness.
Errors of spelling and punctuation, and confusion of forms such as that which leads many to place an apostrophe in the possessive pronoun its.
Of all blunders, there is hardly one which might not be avoided through diligent study of simple textbooks on grammar and rhetoric, intelligent perusal of the best authors, and care and forethought in composition. Almost no excuse exists for their persistent occurrence, since the sources of correction are so numerous and so available.
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H.P. Lovecraft
“
Police officers today are a protected class, one no politician wants to oppose. Law enforcement interests may occasionally come up short on budgetary issues, but legislatures rarely if ever pass new laws to hold police more accountable, to restrict their powers, or to make them more transparent.
In short, police today embody all of the threats the Founders feared were posed by standing armies, plus a few additional ones they couldn’t have anticipated.
This isn’t to say we’re in a police state, a term that’s often misused. Generally speaking, we’re free to travel. We don’t face mass censorship. We still have habeus corpus. And the odds of any single person being victimized by a wrong-door raid, shot or beaten by a cop, or otherwise victimized by militarized police violence are slim to nil. But perhaps we have entered a police state writ small. At the individual level, a police officer’s power and authority over the people he interacts with day to day is near complete. Absent video, if the officer’s account an incident differs from that of a citizen— even several citizens— his superiors, the courts, and prosecutors will nearly always defer to the officer. If other officers are nearby, there are policies in place—official and unofficial—to encourage them to back one another up. Even if the officer does violate the citizen’s rights, the officer is protected by qualified immunity.
”
”
Radley Balko (Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces)
“
There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be. The obvious is sometimes false; the unexpected is sometimes true. Humans everywhere share the same goals when the context is large enough. And the study of the Cosmos provides the largest possible context. Present global culture is a kind of arrogant newcomer. It arrives on the planetary stage following four and a half billion years of other acts, and after looking about for a few thousand years declares itself in possession of eternal truths. But in a world that is changing as fast as ours, this is a prescription for disaster. No nation, no religion, no economic system, no body of knowledge, is likely to have all the answers for our survival. There must be many social systems that would work far better than any now in existence. In the scientific tradition, our task is to find them.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
“
Tragedy springs from its own peculiar sorcery, with treachery, born of envy or ambition, a usual instigator. Treachery is apparent only after the events staged are well over, as we know, its victims dead, or living and smarting under its tricks, realizing too late how they have been misused: if indeed they are ever cognizant of its role, if still players, to this wonder and rue. Most unacceptable is its subtlety, the double-face which double-deals, the Iago perpetrators hidden for decades, smiling the smiles of polite and not so polite society. They nod and wave, heroes to many; sly politicians these Claudiuses. Time favours the Macbeths and forgets the maligned. The former enjoy live, some even oblivious to their lies as being lies, for they prefer to bask in blessings, aping the certainties of creed, cheating death and duty while in pavilions of ease. They succeed on their success, trite or vast; wealth for some, and enviably, fame for the few. The unaware, their victims, float off to obscurity on ruptured vessels of injustice to theater lands unknown, never really knowing why, if the job's done property. Normality is, truthfully, life's whore, readily embraced and conveniently embracing; secretly, it has the clap. Thinking of plot should then give pause. The treacherous cheat fate and re-write, their 'intended history'. Call it fate. They become authors of an illicit story, penmen of their own gods, living their own fresh creation through a new, egregious, utilitarian drama that is untouched by either truth or beauty.
”
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Barnaby Allen (Pacific Viking)
“
Treating Abuse Today 3(4) pp. 26-33
TAT: I want to move back to an area that I'm not real comfortable asking you about, but I'm going to, because I think it's germane to this discussion. When we began our discussion [see "A Conversation with Pamela Freyd, Ph.D., Part 1", Treating Abuse Today, 3(3), P. 25-39] we spoke a bit about how your interest in this issue intersected your own family situation. You have admitted writing about it in your widely disseminated "Jane Doe" article. I think wave been able to cover legitimate ground in our discussion without talking about that, but I am going to return to it briefly because there lingers an important issue there. I want to know how you react to people who say that the Foundation is basically an outgrowth of an unresolved family matter in your own family and that some of the initial members of your Scientific Advisory Board have had dual professional relationships with you and your family, and are not simply scientifically attached to the Foundation and its founders.
Freyd: People can say whatever they want to say. The fact of the matter is, day after day, people are calling to say that something very wrong has taken place. They're telling us that somebody they know and love very much, has acquired memories in some kind of situation, that they're sure are false, but that there has been no way to even try to resolve the issues -- now, it's 3,600 families.
TAT: That's kind of side-stepping the question. My question --
Freyd: -- People can say whatever they want. But you know --
TAT: -- But, isn't it true that some of the people on your scientific advisory have a professional reputation that is to some extent now dependent upon some findings in your own family?
Freyd: Oh, I don't think so. A professional reputation dependent upon findings in my family?
TAT: In the sense that they may have been consulted professionally first about a matter in your own family. Is that not true?
Freyd: What difference does that make?
TAT: It would bring into question their objectivity. It would also bring into question the possibility of this being a folie à deux --
”
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David L. Calof
“
Not everyone is capable of thinking in real, concrete terms. Many seek refuge in religious beliefs. In their weakness, they place their trust in "relics," awaiting salvation at the hands of one stronger than themselves. Anyone who claims to be a strong and knowledgeable authority for such people, and to be acting on their behalf, has the duty to be conscious of the appropriate facts. If they aren't, if they ignore or neglect that duty, claiming instead that their palpable lack of information and their abstract conceptions of "life" are sanctioned by God and practiced in the name of humanity, they are acting against life, by misusing the weakness and truth of the faithful and dangerously confusing them.
”
”
Alice Miller (Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth)
“
If anyone from any thought of school, reads, writes or reviews the history with the selected motives or pledges, will not be ever neutral and fair, and will abuse and misuse the history leading in a wrong direction. Due to the bitter fact that the most historians and authors execute such conduct.
”
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Ehsan Sehgal
“
the bishop, for instance, is the legal executive of the secular corporation that holds diocesan assets. But a bishop, a religious superior, or the chief officer of a Church-administered hospital does not own the assets; he holds them in trust, to be managed for the good of the faithful. Still, because there are few meaningful restrictions on a bishop’s legal authority over diocesan assets, bishops can and sometimes do misuse the resources that have been entrusted to their care. In the years before the sex-abuse scandal came to light, bishops routinely paid large settlements to the victims of priests’ predation, insisting that the cases must remain undisclosed. When the abuse came to light, bishops authorized additional payments of millions to victims as well as millions to the diocesan lawyers who contested the victims’ claims. In all those cases, there was precious little consultation with the laity, with the people who had donated the funds that were being so rapidly dissipated. When the frightening costs of the scandal forced the closing of Catholic parishes and parochial schools, again bishops made their own decisions about which parishes and schools would be eliminated, rarely providing opportunities for lay people—the parishioners and the parents of students in those schools—to participate in the decision-making process. More ominously, several bishops, in order to avoid prosecution for their endangering children and for failing to report crimes, entered into plea-bargaining agreements with local prosecutors. In a few cases, these agreements imposed obligations not only on the bishops themselves but on their successors; their dioceses were required to submit reports to, and clear policies with, local public officials. In other words, these bishops yielded up the religious freedom of the Church to preserve their own personal freedom. The deals they struck might be described as photographic negatives of martyrdom as, rather than laying down their own lives for the sake of others, too many of our bishops surrendered the patrimony of generations of Catholics to protect themselves. That has been one way in which bishops have betrayed the faithful in recent years.
”
”
Philip F. Lawler (The Smoke of Satan: How Corrupt and Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, and the Faithful . . . and What Can Be Done About It)
“
When an atheist enjoys the cool breeze of a sunny autumn day as he writes his treatise saying God doesn’t exist, the ultimate source of his pleasure remains God. God is the author of the universe itself—including the powers of rational thought the atheist misuses to argue against God. David
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Randy Alcorn (God's Promise of Happiness)
“
The nature of the ego is to misuse whatever authority one has.
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Dada Bhagwan
“
Misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law, is action taken ‘under color of’ state law.”19
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Erwin Chemerinsky (Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights)
“
The shameful conduct of Mian Saqib Nisar, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, displayed a lack of morality and respect for subordinates, which is also demonstrated in Indian ridiculous warrior films. A sensible and a sober person unable to define the status that Chief Justice holds upon which law, he victimized and humiliated a part of its judicial system, what manners and message; he tried to execute towards the Pakistani nation and the entire world; is it not a way of an insulting and misuse of his authority?
”
”
Ehsan Sehgal
“
Unfortunately, there are sometimes leaders in positions of authority who abuse or mistreat those they are sworn to protect, serve, lead, provide for, and care for. That is wrong! I cannot emphasize this enough. God will repay those who misuse the authority He gave to them. They will stand before Him and give an account and He will dispense justice (eternal condemnation in hell) unless they repent, turn to Christ, and receive mercy through the blood of Jesus in this lifetime. Either an abusive husband will pay dearly for his sin, or Jesus will pay dearly for his sin.
”
”
April Cassidy (The Peaceful Wife: Living in Submission to Christ as Lord)
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31. The greatest authors and instigators of evil are ignorance, self-love and tyranny. Each depends on the other two and is supported by them: from ignorance of God comes self-love, and from self-love comes tyranny over one's own kind. The devil establishes these in us when we misuse our own powers, namely our intelligence, our desire and our incensive power.
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Saint Nikodimos (The Philokalia: The Complete Text)
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The idea that the word of God should be permitted to cal- cify slowly into a language normal people can’t read is one of the reasons we had a Protestant Reformation, a movement launched by a monk whose first act a er defying a church council with, “My conscience is captive to the word of God” was to hole himself up in Wartburg castle and translate the Bible into German. There he sat; he could do no other.
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Mark L. Ward Jr. (Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible)
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Note: I am sure that now they will approach Medium to stop me from writing. Let’s see what happens.
“A genuine person or celebrity doesn’t need a certificate or blue tick. Such ways are blackmailing your passion, emotion, or willingness. Criminals and money-mongers misuse and try to earn in an ugly and easy way. This trend also discriminates against others who cannot afford such an awkward notion.”
Istay determined every day. I cannot tolerate liars and those who misuse their authority and attempt to victimize the righteous for their will and purpose in an illegitimate way to please their godfathers of the mafia and international criminal intelligence agencies.
I am pretty sure, after reviewing again the replies from the Twitter team that mirror and endorse the Twitter team, that someone works for intelligence agencies or criminal and mafia groups. Since the beginning months of this year, I have been continuously victimized without specifying why I was posting the wrong things.
I am going to publish a few emails that will exhibit the picture of how I was being victimized, harassed, and even threatened about things that I was neither aware of nor that the team explained.
I was already under the attacks of criminals and even the gang of filthy-minded gays who were suffering from mental issues and sexual frustration; knowing it, I am not gay. In the Twitter team, the presence of such ones is not excluded since I felt a similar style of victimization. How do they dare to adopt such mean tactics to gain their will and desire?
This reply email shows that a screenshot article has been displayed since 2020. After four years, it became an issue for someone in the Twitter team who continued to lock my account and tag the restriction flag.
Text of my emails;
“I am still uncertain about what to post and what not to post. You didn’t specify why my account was locked, whether it was because of the content I removed or something else. Is it permissible for me to share media and social media links in which my quotes are mentioned? My writings do not contain any personal attacks; nonetheless, thank you.”
“You locked my Twitter, @EhsanSehgal, again; you know why you are doing it. Now, I can say only goodbye to my locked account and enjoy your terror. It is not a protection of my account; it is victimization. No more requests to unlock my account. Someone of angelic character will do it without my request. Shame on you all, involved ones.”
Team replied;
Hello,
“We had a look at your account, and it appears that everything is now resolved!
If that’s not the case, please reply to this message, and we’ll continue to help.
Thanks,”
X Support
This was a screenshot article from Wikipedia about me on my profile that was illegitimately removed by such people as the Twitter team forced me to remove. Despite that, they continued locking my account to identify and provide an ID or passport. I did that twice and identified several times, but the team seemed not satisfied since their goal was something else; they would not approach nor be able to do it.
To stop such criminal torture, I deactivated my account and decided never to come back there again.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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Here, then, it is the misuse of this “liberty of yours” (8:9) that is at issue. Actually the word the NAB translates “liberty” is exousia, meaning “authority,” with the nuance of “right” (as in 9:4–6), which suggests that they are acting with complete disregard for the effect their action might have on others.
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George T. Montague (First Corinthians (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture): (A Catholic Bible Commentary on the New Testament by Trusted Catholic Biblical Scholars - CCSS))
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If twentieth-century history - with its widespread belief in social Darwinism and the many terrible effects of trying to apply eugenics that resulted from it - has anything to teach us, it is that we humans have a dangerous tendency to turn the visions we construct of ourselves into self-fulfilling prophecies. The idea of the "survival of the fittest" has been misused to condone, and in some cases to justify, excesses of human greed and individualism and ignore ethical models for relating to our fellow human beings in a more compassionate spirit. Thus, irrespective of our conceptions of science, given that science today occupies such an important seat of authority in human society, it is extremely important for those in the profession to be aware of their power and to appreciate their responsibility. Science must act as its own corrective to popular misconceptions and misappropriations of ideas that could have disastrous implications for the world and humanity at large.
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Dalai Lama XIV (The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality)
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This Gospel is easy to misunderstand. Jesus is not praising dishonesty. The unjust manager misused his master’s money in the past and continued to misuse it in the present when on his own authority he lowered the amount his master’s debtors owed to the master. But Jesus praises him for two things: first, for being clever on a worldly level (he notes that the worldly are more enterprising and clever about money than the otherworldly are), and second, for using money for a higher purpose than making more money—that is, for making friends. He lost his friendship with his master over money, so he used money to make new friends—namely, his master’s debtors. Jesus then says that this little worldly thing, the enterprising use of money, is an indication of a greater thing, the use of greater things, and that people who can be trusted to take care of this lesser thing, money, can also be trusted to take care of greater things than money. But then, at the end, he adds that not only are there greater things than money even in this life, such as friendship; there are much greater things in the next world and in our relationship to God. In fact, he says that it is impossible for anyone to have two gods, two masters, two greatest goods, two final ends and goals in life. You cannot give your single self to a double end, God and money. You either love God for his own sake and refuse to serve money and all the things money can buy, demoting it to a mere relative and instrumental means to that one ultimate end; or, you love money and the things money can buy in this world as your final end, your greatest good, your god, and you despise and demote God and the things of God to mere means to this other thing. Jesus is reminding us of what he calls the very first and greatest of all the commandments: to love the Lord your God with your whole heart and soul and strength—and also with your mind, that clever mind that the fired manager used as a means to the higher end of worldly friendships and that you also ought to use for the higher end of your friendship with God. After all, God created it all and owns it all, and you are only the manager of a tiny portion of his goods. It all belongs to God, not to you. No matter what you give to God—your money, your stuff, your time, your life—you are only returning to him what is his.
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Peter Kreeft (Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings (Cycle C) (Food for the Soul Series Book 3))
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He that desires to be divorced from his wife for any cause11 whatsoever, (and many such causes happen among men,) let him in writing give assurance that he will never use her as his wife any more; for by this means she may be at liberty to marry another husband, although before this bill of divorce be given, she is not to be permitted so to do: but if she be misused by him also, or if, when he is dead, her first husband would marry her again, it shall not be lawful for her to return to him.
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Flavius Josephus (The Antiquities of the Jews: History of the Jewish People from Adam and Eve to Jewish–Roman Wars; Including Author's Autobiography)
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It was wrong ever to propose such questions as these, or to reply to them when propounded. For points of discussion which are enjoined by the authority of no law, but rather suggested by a contentious spirit which is in turn the consequence of misused leisure, should be confined to our own thoughts, and neither hastily produced in public assemblies nor ill-advisedly entrusted to the public ear. For how very few of us are those who are able either accurately to comprehend or adequately to explain matters so sublime and so abstruse?
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Constantine the Great
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We misuse our faith and channel it to the wrong places by simply thinking we have none or not enough.
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Author Mutuma J Karuntimi
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Easter is an act of "rebellion" against all false necessity and all illegitimate or misused authority, all cruelty and heartless chance. It liberates us from servitude to and terror before the "elements:' It emancipates us from fate. It overcomes the "world:' Easter should make rebels of us all.
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David Bentley Hart (The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? by Hart, David Bentley [Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011] (Paperback) [Paperback])
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Men with power are prone to misuse it, and it is nowhere more damaging to good order than when the power of the state is wedded to a perceived religious authority. And when a few children of God desire to walk as they see fit in Scripture, the religious authorities inevitably take actions to stop it and try to bind the consciences of the “rebels.” The danger of state churches is clearly demonstrated by history, as man cannot rule as God does. So having each congregation be autonomous is the only acceptable way; and it has the benefit of aligning with Scripture. So the congregation and each saint therein stands before God with, as Luther put it, a conscience bound only by the Word of God.
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Stuart L Brogden (Captive to the Word of God: A Particular Baptist Perspective on Reformed and Covenant Theology)
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If anyone from any thought of school, reads, writes, or reviews the history with the selected motives or pledges, will not be ever neutral and fair, and will abuse and misuse the history leading in the wrong direction. Due to the bitter fact that most historians and authors execute such conduct
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Ehsan Sehgal
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The KJV translators were not KJV-Only. They would most definitely support the work of later translators building on their foundation and being helped by their labors.
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Mark L. Ward Jr. (Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible)
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Likewise, revising the KJV shouldn’t scare Christians who love it. The KJV, itself a revision, underwent at least six revisions of varying significance after 1611. The last one—for various reasons the one that “stuck”—occurred
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Mark L. Ward Jr. (Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible)
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The public majority mandate becomes an authority in the civilized societies; it is a democracy; however, people should realize, what they build, and demand. Misuse of law in any shape, is itself a crime, even if a Judiciary executes, that too.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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Muslim Mosques And Fake Jesus Created By Qadiyanis
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The visionary figures pay intention whatever issues come to the table; whereas, mindless people ignore those issues. However, the truth stays brightening.
I exemplify the point of view and concerns as below, hoping the world realizes that.
If whatever groups or gangs establish the false subjects with similar names as The United Nations Organization, The White House, and The Downing 10, The Kremlin, and such ones; indeed, such attempts show not only misleading and misguiding; these also describe the illegality and naked crime.
It is the governmental level example; however, it can be non-governmental as well.
In such situations, if that crime happens, what will be the action and reaction by the authorities and the judiciary? - Certainly, offenders will face transparent justice; otherwise, it means the world is blind, and justice is silent on that.
After the above scenario, now I come to the point why I am writing that: As the Muslim world knows significantly about the fake prophet Mira Ghulam Ahmad Qadiyani as Jesus and his Ahmedi Movement, which executes and spreads its false and fake objects and subjects openly and secretly to mislead the world, especially Christians and Muslims.
Mostly Muslim countries consider Qadiyanis, another term Ahmadis as non-Muslim according to their fake belief and prophet as Jesus Christ. In Western states and around the world where Qadiyanis pretend as the Muslim, and they build their payer places, naming Mosques of Muslims, which falls under the deception and violation of the Islamic concept.
Consequently, most of the Westerns and simple Muslims, who have not knowledge about the fake prophet, become their victim since they keep naming their prayer places, as Mosques; thereupon, they wear the mask to pretend as real Muslim and join the real Muslim Mosques to become members, and later they occupy and claim of the Mosque as that belong to Qadiyanis.
I do not feel problems and objections if Qadiyanis created a new religion; however, I have serious concerns that they misuse Islam and Muslim values and concept within the context of the Quran, the Holy Book of Allah. Indeed, they have the right to avail the human rights as others without distinctions, but they do not have the right to pretend, falsify and deceive, and even practice black magic to gain their awkward intentions and motives.
Western states and Christian World should pay heed to this matter and stop Qadiyanis, who follow the fake Jesus Christ, to use their prayer place as Mosques for protection and respect of Islam.
- Ehsan Sehgal
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Ehsan Sehgal
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Authoritarian rule is as good or bad as the ruler himself; Democracy sounds terrific on papers and its advantage is misused by unscrupulous people to the maximum; hence Communism flourished in the name of peoples' equality, but reduced them to a number only!
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Sandeep Sahajpal (The Twelfth Preamble: To all the authors to be! (Short Stories Book 1))
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If anyone from any thought of school, reads, writes or reviews the history with the selected motives or pledges, will not be ever neutral and fair, and will abuse and misuse the history leading in a wrong direction. Due to the bitter fact that most historians and authors execute such conduct.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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It is a widely accepted fact, that MEDICINE IS VOLUNTARY.
Mask is a medical equipment. It has come to become a TOOL in the hands of unscrupulous people around the planet. It is used for IMPOSITION OF WILL, CRIME (eg: targeting unwary people with contamination), INVERSE ASSAULT (WEAR, when not required & DONOT WEAR, when required).
WHY ENFORCE? First, I take precautions.If necessary, I make a request. CONSENT & DIGNITY.
DO A SURVEY. 90 % population misuses it. Being used for IMPOSING ONESELF, Power, Control, Hegemony, Convenience, Crime, CREATING FEAR, as a substitute phrase. In its effect, it is psychologically more destructive than the pandemic itself. It touches dignity, lowers self esteem, devastates families. Anyone trying to reason, is taken as a CHALLENGE TO AUTHORITY, when, actually, it is just a VOLUNTARY MEDICAL EQUIPMENT.
A TINY TOOL has become one of the most widespread ever, across the globe.
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Devinder Sidhu
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Freedom and authority are both fundamental principles of human communal life,” he said. “Both find their foundation and their ruling principle in God. When this foundation is misunderstood and misused, there will always be a misuse of freedom and authority.
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Daniel Utrecht (The Lion of Munster: The Bishop Who Roared Against the Nazis)
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Easter is an act of "rebellion" against all false necessity and all illegitimate or misused authority, all cruelty and heartless chance. It liberates us from servitude to and terror before the "elements." It emancipates us from fate. It overcomes the "world:' Easter should make rebels of us all.
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David Bentley Hart (The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?)
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The Kremlin also is determined, along with China, to wrest control of the internet from the American-based committees which run it now. It wants the internet to be under governmental control, with an entrenched right for national authorities to promote 'information security'—a concept which sounds anodyne or even reassuring to Western ears, but in practice would allow authoritarian governments to censor and control their subjects' diet of information. In both Russia and China misuse of social media, for example, is perceived as a significant national security issue requiring extensive active and passive efforts by the authorities.
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Edward Lucas (The Snowden Operation: Inside the West's Greatest Intelligence Disaster)