Misuse Of Freedom Quotes

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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)
No man will ever be whole and dignified and free except in the knowledge that the men around him are whole and dignified and free, and that the world itself is free of contempt and misuse.
Wendell Berry (The Hidden Wound)
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)
Let no one ever intimidate you, you are standing on no one's ground. But again, some have claimed the earth as their own and usurped power from the rest of us. But they are usurpers; power belongs to every one of us. Seek it as much as possible. There is no shame in that. In fact it's a necessity. Either you have power or you are trampled to death in the stampede to get to the top
Bangambiki Habyarimana (Pearls Of Eternity)
You can speak. What other animal on the planet can speak? The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you. One edge is the misuse of the word, which creates a living hell.
Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom)
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)
Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people's right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
An emotionally destructive marriage is one where one’s personhood, dignity, and freedom of choice is regularly denied, criticized, or crushed. This can be done through words, behaviors, economics, attitudes, and misusing the Scriptures.
Leslie Vernick (The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope)
We are determined to answer evil with GOOD, slavery with FREEDOM, rape with hope! We are against slavery, rape, beheading, torture, violations of human rights, corruption and misuse of religion!
Widad Akreyi
Our First Amendment freedoms give us the right to think what we like and say what we please. And if we the people are to govern ourselves, we must have these rights even if they are misused by a minority.
James Madison
Freedom is an often paradoxical and unexpected path that is found through kindness and curiosity. What would it mean for you to bless instead of curse your body for experiencing what it felt? Will you cry out with agony for how your desire was misused instead of remaining silent in your shame? Honesty and kindness change the human heart. Contempt for arousal and silence in our shame lead to continual pursuit of unwanted sexual behavior.
Jay Stringer (Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing)
Freedom of speech’ is one of the most misused terms in modern discourse, wrongly used to excuse, cover up or defend abuse.
Laura Bates (Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism)
And so God gave man free will that he might increase in virtue by his own efforts and become, as a free moral being, a worthy object of God’s love. Freedom entails freedom to go wrong: man did, in fact, go wrong, misusing God’s gift and doing evil. Pain is a by-product of evil; and so pain came into the world as a result of man’s misuse of God’s gift of free will.
C.S. Lewis (God in the Dock)
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!)
As with the transition between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, the curdling of the social internet happened slowly and then all at once. The tipping point, I'd guess, was around 2012. People were losing excitement about the internet, starting to articulate a set of new truisms. Facebook had become tedious, trivial, exhausting. Instagram seemed better, but would soon reveal its underlying function as a three-ring circus of happiness and popularity and success. Twitter, for all its discursive promise, was where everyone tweeted complaints at airlines and bitched about articles that had been commissioned to make people bitch. The dream of a better, truer self on the internet was slipping away. Where we had once been free to be ourselves online, we were now chained to ourselves online, and this made us self-conscious. Platforms that promised connection began inducing mass alienation. The freedome promised by the internet started to seem like something whose greatest potential lay in the realm of misuse.
Jia Tolentino (Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion)
commencement address at Harvard University in 1978, Solzhenitsyn shocked his audience by suggesting that “the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion” was not attractive to those living in Russia. “It is time, in the West,” Solzhenitsyn said, “to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.” The triumph of rights over obligations had resulted in a destructive and irresponsible freedom, leading to “the abyss of human decadence.” He criticized the “misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, such as motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror,” which illustrated the surrender of the West to the corrosion of evil. “The problem at the root of the West’s malaise,” Solzhenitsyn explained, was rooted in the “rationalistic humanism” of the so-called Enlightenment:
Joseph Pearce (Benedict XVI: Defender of the Faith)
Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Bob Dylan
I had no problems manipulating the biblical text to suit my own preconceived notions of “blessing” while at the same time giving God my timetable for these things to be realized. But in doing this, I was violating the context and completely missing the fact that God was talking to a nation (not an individual), a nation that had to go through seventy years of heartache and exile before there was any hope of freedom from captivity. And if it could not be used as a promise for the immediate future of those who first heard it, then it should not be used for my immediate future either.
Eric J. Bargerhuff (The Most Misused Verses in the Bible: Surprising Ways God's Word Is Misunderstood)
The misuse of history to condemn evils common around the world as if they were peculiarities of the West has serious practical implications. Two wrongs do not make a right but undermining the society which has the smaller evil only makes it more vulnerable to the greater evils in other societies and in international terrorist networks. Far more is involved than questions of objectivity or honesty, important as such questions are. Without understanding the features of one’s own society that have provided a prosperity, a freedom, and a security rare to non-existent over much of the rest of the world, one risks losing by default all these things for oneself and posterity. American society is one whose underlying bases are always under attack by both internal opportunists and external enemies. Those who have no conception of the Constitution of the United States, except as an object of nit-picking, cannot be expected to defend its integrity against the inevitable encroachments of political opportunists and judicial power-seekers. Those who have no conception of the unique heritage of Western civilization have no idea what losing that heritage would mean – to them and to generations yet unborn – and why it must be defended against passing fads at home and lethal threats from abroad.
Thomas Sowell (Black Rednecks and White Liberals)
I’m absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. . . . But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots . . . without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. . . . [A] riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.85 In
Jeanne Theoharis (A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History)
The insidious nature of government surveillance extends beyond the violation of privacy; it corrodes the foundations of trust essential for a healthy democracy. When citizens are constantly under the watchful eye of those in power, it creates an environment ripe for abuse and manipulation. The emotional toll is immeasurable, breeding a culture of fear and self-censorship as individuals navigate a world where every action is potentially scrutinized. Examples from history, such as the misuse of surveillance by authoritarian regimes, serve as stark warnings against the encroachment of unchecked power into the private lives of citizens. The unlawfulness of such surveillance is not just a legal matter but a moral imperative to safeguard the very essence of individual freedom.
James William Steven Parker
Man is the first product of evolution to be capable of controlling evolutionary destiny.'" Endowed as he is with reasoning powers, he must independently decide up on his own behavior, without the compelling guidance by instinct. Supplied with mind, he is expected to cooperate consciously with nature in her further evolutionary program. Unfortunately humanity has arrantly failed to make a serious effort to promote its own further progress. Instead of using the power of the mind to understand the responsibilities which freedom from blind obedience to instinct entails, mankind has refused to listen whenever it was reminded of the requirements of the evolutionary law. It was so much easier to lend an ear to the promptings of desire, which was an unknown element up to the human stage. It must have been very soon after the acquisition of mental self-consciousness and his becoming aware of stirrings of primitive impulses, that man began to use the mind to stimulate the desires of the body. In this way he has indulged the almost negligible sexual impulse which he inherited from the animal kingdom, until it has become a desire so strong that he has difficulty to control it. Overstimulated by this unnaturally strong desire of his own making, man has looked for arbitrary ways in which to gratify it. Although reducing actual reproduction, he has discovered ways of unreproductive sexual action. But every such act, whatever form it takes, is a misuse of sex and uses up some of the life force that should be utilized for the support and the development of higher faculties. "The record of our race progress clearly shows how our upward movement has been checked ... by that misuse.
C.J. Van Vliet (The Coiled Serpent: A Philosophy Of Conservation And Transmutation Of Reproductive Energy)
In July 2016, Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed invoked King’s spirit and the power of free speech but then explained to reporters the large police presence at demonstrations following police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile: “Dr. King would never take a highway.”21 There is something deeply ahistorical and ironic to call for voices muted, tactics softened, disruption avoided, and more honorable spokesmen located, when these very criticisms were lobbed at the civil rights movement as well. And there is something convenient, too—a way of justifying remove, by making it seem as if people would join movements such as BLM if the upstanding likes of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were part of it, but these new movements were just going about it the wrong way. Looking more deeply into the Black freedom struggle challenges such misuses of civil rights history and reveals the politics behind this mythmaking.
Jeanne Theoharis (A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History)
The communists believe that they have found the path to deliverance from our evils. According to them, man is wholly good and is well-disposed to his neighbour; but the institution of private property has corrupted his nature. The ownership of private wealth gives the individual power, and with it the temptation to ill-treat his neighbour; while the man who is excluded from possession is bound to rebel in hostility against his oppressor. If private property were abolished, all wealth held in common, and everyone allowed to share in the enjoyment of it, ill-will and hostility would disappear among men. Since everyone’s needs would be satisfied, no one would have any reason to regard another as his enemy; all would willingly undertake the work that was necessary.I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premisses on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments, certainly a strong one, though certainly not the strongest; but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness, nor have we altered anything in its nature. Aggressiveness was not created by property. It reigned almost without limit in primitive times, when property was still very scanty, and it already shows itself in the nursery almost before property has given up its primal, anal form; it forms the basis of every relation of affection and love among people (with the single exception, perhaps, of the mother’s relation to her male child). If we do away with personal rights over material wealth, there still remains prerogative in the field of sexual relationships, which is bound to become the source of the strongest dislike and the most violent hostility among men who in other respects are on an equal footing. If we were to remove this factor, too, by allowing complete freedom of sexual life and thus abolishing the family, the germ-cell of civilization, we cannot, it is true, easily foresee what new paths the development of civilization could take; but one thing we can expect, and that is that this indestructible feature of human nature, will follow it there.
Sigmund Freud (Civilization and Its Discontents)
the psychological premisses on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments, certainly a strong one, though certainly not the strongest; but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness, nor have we altered anything in its nature. Aggressiveness was not created by property. It reigned almost without limit in primitive times, when property was still very scanty, and it already shows itself in the nursery almost before property has given up its primal, anal form; it forms the basis of every relation of affection and love among people (with the single exception, perhaps, of the mother’s relation to her male child). If we do away with personal rights over material wealth, there still remains prerogative in the field of sexual relationships, which is bound to become the source of the strongest dislike and the most violent hostility among men who in other respects are on an equal footing. If we were to remove this factor, too, by allowing complete freedom of sexual life and thus abolishing the family, the germ-cell of civilization, we cannot, it is true, easily foresee what new paths the development of civilization could take; but one thing we can expect, and that is that this indestructible feature of human nature, will follow it there.
Sigmund Freud
I have been in many dugouts, Ludwig,” he goes on. “And we were all young men who sat there around one miserable slush lamp, waiting, while the barrage raged overhead like an earthquake. We were none of your inexperienced recruits, either; we knew well enough what we were waiting for and we knew what would come. —But there was more in those faces down in the gloom there than mere calm, more than good humour, more than just readiness to die. There was the will to another future in those hard, set faces; and it was there when they charged, and still there when they died. —We had less to say for ourselves year by year, we shed many things, but that one thing still remained. And now, Ludwig, where is it now? Can’t you see how it is perishing in all this pig’s wash of order, duty, women, routine, punctuality and the rest of it that here they call life? —No, Ludwig, we lived then! And you tell me a thousand times that you hate war, yet I still say, we lived then. We lived, because we were together, and because something burned in us that was more than this whole muck heap here!” He is breathing hard. “It must have been for something, Ludwig! When I first heard there was revolution, for one brief moment I thought: Now the time will be redeemed—now the flood will pour back, tearing down the old things, digging new banks for itself—and, by God, I would have been in it! But the flood broke up into a thousand runnels; the revolution became a mere scramble for jobs, for big jobs and little jobs. It has trickled away, it has been dammed up, it has been drained off into business, into family, and party. —But that will not do me. I’m going where comradeship is still to be found.” Ludwig stands up. His brow is flaming, his eyes blaze. He looks Rahe in the face. “And why is it, Georg? Why is it? Because we were duped, I tell you, duped as even yet we hardly realize; because we were misused, hideously misused. They told us it was for the Fatherland, and meant the schemes of annexation of a greedy industry. —They told us it was for Honour, and meant the quarrels and the will to power of a handful of ambitious diplomats and princes. —They told us it was for the Nation, and meant the need for activity on the part of out-of-work generals!” He takes Rahe by the shoulders and shakes him. “Can’t you see? They stuffed out the word Patriotism with all the twaddle of their fine phrases, with their desire for glory, their will to power, their false romanticism, their stupidity, their greed of business, and then paraded it before us as a shining ideal! And we thought they were sounding a bugle summoning us to a new, a more strenuous, a larger life. Can’t you see, man? But we were making war against ourselves without knowing it! Every shot that struck home, struck one of us! Can’t you see? Then listen and I will bawl it into your ears. The youth of the world rose up in every land, believing that it was fighting for freedom! And in every land they were duped and misused; in every land they have been shot down, they have exterminated each other! Don’t you see now? —There is only one fight, the fight against the lie, the half-truth, compromise, against the old order. But we let ourselves be taken in by their phrases; and instead of fighting against them, we fought for them. We thought it was for the Future. It was against the Future. Our future is dead; for the youth is dead that carried it. We are merely the survivors, the ruins. But the other is alive still—the fat, the full, the well content, that lives on, fatter and fuller, more contented than ever! And why? Because the dissatisfied, the eager, the storm troops have died for it. But think of it! A generation annihilated! A generation of hope, of faith, of will, strength, ability, so hypnotised that they have shot down one another, though over the whole world they all had the same purpose!” His
Erich Maria Remarque (The Road Back)
Because we were duped, I tell you, duped as even yet we hardly realize; because we were misused, hideously misused. They told us it was for the Fatherland, and meant the schemes of annexation of a greedy industry. They told us it was for Honour, and meant the quarrels and the will to power of a handful of ambitious diplomats and princes. They told us it was for the Nation, and meant the need for activity on the part of out-of-work generals!... Can't you see? They stuffed out the word Patriotism with all the twaddle of their fine phrases, and their desire for glory, their will to power, their false romanticism, their stupidity, their greed of business, and then paraded it before us a shining ideal! And we thought they were sounding a bugle summoning us to a new, a more strenuous, a larger life. Can't you see man? But we were making war against ourselves without knowing it! Every shot that struck home, struck one of us! Can't you see? Then listen and I will bawl it into your ears. The youth of the world rose up in every land, believing that it was fighting for freedom! And in every land they were duped and misused; in every land they have been shot down, they have exterminated each other! Don't you see now? There is only one fight, the fight against the lie, the half-truth, compromise, against the old order. But we let ourselves be taken in by their phrases; and instead of fighting against them, we fought for them. We thought it was for the Future. It was against the Future. Our future is dead; for the youth is dead that carried it. We are merely the survivors the ruins. But the other is alive still - the fat, the full, the well content, that lies on, fatter and fuller, more contented than ever! And why? Because the dissatisfied, the eager, the storm troops have died for it. But think of it! A generation annihilated! A generation of hope, of faith, of will, of strength, ability, so hypnotised that they have shot down one another, though over the whole world they all had the same purpose!
Erich Maria Remarque (The Road Back)
I believe that the injustice and inhumanity of the unrestrained ‘capitalist system’ described by Marx cannot be questioned; but it can be interpreted in terms of what we called, in a previous chapter20, the paradox of freedom. Freedom, we have seen, defeats itself, if it is unlimited. Unlimited freedom means that a strong man is free to bully one who is weak and to rob him of his freedom. This is why we demand that the state should limit freedom to a certain extent, so that everyone’s freedom is protected by law. Nobody should be at the mercy of others, but all should have a right to be protected by the state. Now I believe that these considerations, originally meant to apply to the realm of brute-force, of physical intimidation, must be applied to the economic realm also. Even if the state protects its citizens from being bullied by physical violence (as it does, in principle, under the system of unrestrained capitalism), it may defeat our ends by its failure to protect them from the misuse of economic power. In such a state, the economically strong is still free to bully one who is economically weak, and to rob him of his freedom. Under these circumstances, unlimited economic freedom can be just as self-defeating as unlimited physical freedom, and economic power may be nearly as dangerous as physical violence; for those who possess a surplus of food can force those who are starving into a ‘freely’ accepted servitude, without using violence. And assuming that the state limits its activities to the suppression of violence (and to the protection of property), a minority which is economically strong may in this way exploit the majority of those who are economically weak.
Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies)
When we see the world through a computer virus, it is easy to justify the cruelest behavior. What we don’t see is that misuse of our word is putting us deeper into hell.
Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom)
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)
… This was chronicled in a harsher book and McCaslin, fourteen and fifteen and sixteen, had seen it and the boy himself had inherited it as Noah’s grandchildren had inherited the Flood although they had not been there to see the deluge: that dark corrupt and bloody time while three separate people had tried to adjust not only to one another but to the new land which they had created and inherited too and must live in for the reason that those who had lost it were no less free to quit it than those who had gained it were: – those upon whom freedom and equality had been dumped overnight and without warning or preparation or any training in how to employ it or even just endure it and who misused it not as children would nor yet because they had been so long in bondage and then so suddenly freed, but misused it as human beings always misused freedom, so that he thought Apparently there is a wisdom beyond even that learned through suffiring necessary for a man to distinguish between liberty and license; those who had fought for four years and lost to preserve a condition under which that franchisement was anomaly and paradox, for the old reasons for which man (not the generals and politicians but man) has always fought and died in wars: to preserve a status quo or to establish a better future one to endure for his children; and lastly, as if that were not enough for bitterness and hatred and fear, that third race even more alien to the people whom they resembled in pigment and in whom even the same blood ran, than to the people whom they did not, – that race threefold in one and alien even among themselves save for a single fierce aged Quartermaster lieutenants and Army sutlers and contractors in military blankets and shoes and transport mules, who followed the battles they themselves had not fought and inherited the conquest they themselves had not helped to gain, sanctioned and protected even if not blessed, and left their bones and in another generation would be engaged in a fierce economic competition of small sloven farms with the black men they were supposed to have freed and the white descendants of fathers who had owned no slaves anyway whom they were supposed to have disinherited and in the third generation would be back once more in the little lost country seats as barbers and garage mechanics and deputy sheriffs and mill- and gin-hands and power-plant firemen, leading, first in mufti then later in an actual formalized regalia of hooded sheets and passwords and fiery Christian symbols, lynching mobs against the race their ancestors had come to save: and of all that other nameless horde of speculators in human misery, manipulators of money and politics and land, who follow catastrophe and are their own protection as grasshoppers are and need no blessing and sweat no plow or axe-helve and batten and vanish and leave no bones, just as they derived apparently from no ancestry, no mortal flesh, no act even of passion or even of lust: and the Jew who came without protection too since after two thousand years he had got out of the habit of being or needing it, and solitary, without even the solidarity of the locusts and in this a sort of courage since he had come thinking not in terms of simple pillage but in terms of his great-grand-children, seeking yet some place to establish them to endure even though forever alien: and unblessed: a pariah about the face of the Western earth which twenty centuries later was still taking revenge on him for the fairy tale with which he had conquered it. …
William Faulkner (Go Down Moses)
To become the mirror, I criticise, to myself. I do not misuse and violate the freedom of speech and the press, but I am mostly out and overdosed. I cannot stop without gaming the system. The licence of the tongue and the pen gun is in my hands.
Ehsan Sehgal
Man is the first product of evolution to be capable of controlling evolutionary destiny.'" Endowed as he is with reasoning powers, he must independently decide up on his own behavior, without the compelling guidance by instinct. Supplied with mind, he is expected to cooperate consciously with nature in her further evolutionary program. Unfortunately humanity has arrantly failed to make a serious effort to promote its own further progress. Instead of using the power of the mind to understand the responsibilities which freedom from blind obedience to instinct entails, mankind has refused to listen whenever it was reminded of the requirements of the evolutionary law. It was so much easier to lend an ear to the promptings of desire, which was an unknown element up to the human stage. It must have been very soon after the acquisition of mental self-consciousness and his becoming aware of stirrings of primitive impulses, that man began to use the mind to stimulate the desires of the body. In this way he has indulged the almost negligible sexual impulse which he inherited from the animal kingdom, until it has become a desire so strong that he has difficulty to control it. Overstimulated by this unnaturally strong desire of his own making, man has looked for arbitrary ways in which to gratify it. Although reducing actual reproduction, he has discovered ways of unreproductive sexual action. But every such act, whatever form it takes, is a misuse of sex and uses up some of the life force that should be utilized for the support and the development of higher faculties. "The record of our race progress clearly shows how our upward movement has been checked ... by that misuse.
C. J. Van Vliet
many religions have too often failed on their own terms; they are, or have often been, unholy. Their doctrines and structures have been misused to kill, hurt, or steal from non-believers and even those with only slightly different opinions on certain aspects of the ‘truth’. Preachings of the community of woman and man, of love and compassion, have given way to violence and holy perfidy. This is similar to how communism’s intended remedy for inequity was more than outweighed by its violence and reduction in our humanity and freedom in the name of equality.
Peter Pink-Howitt (Ethics of Life: freedom and diversity)
Our freedom is God’s primary gift to us. In fact it makes us like God. We need not be afraid to claim it and exercise it. Even when we misuse our free will, God does not take it away, but works to undo the damage we cause. We learn from Jesus how to use our freedom well.
The Irish Jesuits (The Irish Province of the Society of Jesus) (Sacred Space: The Prayer Book 2015)
...be impeccable with your word. Your word is the power that you have to create. Your word is the gift that comes directly from God. The Gospel of John in the Bible, speaking of the creation of the universe says, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word is God.” Through the word you express your creative power. It is through the world that you manifest everything. The world is a force... Your word is pure magic, and misuse of your word is black magic.
Miguel Ruiz (The Mastery of Self: A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom (Toltec Mastery Series))
The word is pure magic — the most powerful gift we have as humans — and we use it against ourselves. We plan revenge. We create chaos with the word. We use the word to create hate between different races, between different people, between families, between nations. We misuse the word so often, and this misuse is how we create and perpetuate the dream of hell. Misuse of the word is how we pull each other down and keep each other in a state of fear and doubt. Because the word is the magic that humans possess and misuse of the word is black magic, we are using black magic all the time without knowing that our word is magic at all. There was a woman, for example, who was intelligent and had a very good heart. She had a daughter whom she adored and loved very much. One night she came home from a very bad day at work, tired, full of emotional tension, and with a terrible headache. She wanted peace and quiet, but her daughter was singing and jumping happily. The daughter was unaware of how her mother was feeling; she was in her own world, in her own dream. She felt so wonderful, and she was jumping and singing louder and louder, expressing her joy and her love. She was singing so loud that it made her mother’s headache even worse, and at a certain moment, the mother lost control. Angrily she looked at her beautiful little girl and said, “Shut up! You have an ugly voice. Can you just shut up!” The truth is that the mother’s tolerance for any noise was nonexistent; it was not that the little girl’s voice was ugly. But the daughter believed what her mother said, and in that moment she made an agreement with herself. After that she no longer sang, because she believed her voice was ugly and would bother anyone who heard it. She became shy at school, and if she was asked to sing, she refused. Even speaking to others became difficult for her. Everything changed in the little girl because of this new agreement: She believed she must repress her emotions in order to be accepted and loved. Whenever we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement, and it becomes part of our belief system. This little girl grew up, and even though she had a beautiful voice, she never sang again. She developed a whole complex from one spell. This spell was cast upon her by the one who loved her the most: her own mother. Her mother didn’t notice what she did with her word. She didn’t notice that she used black magic and put a spell on her daughter. She didn’t know the power of her word, and therefore she isn’t to blame. She did what her own mother, father, and others had done to her in many ways. They misused the word. How
Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom)
We believe in God, Creator of the world; and in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of creation. We believe in the Holy Spirit, through whom we acknowledge God’s gifts, and we repent of our sin in misusing these gifts to idolatrous ends. We affirm the natural world as God’s handiwork and dedicate ourselves to its preservation, enhancement, and faithful use by humankind. We joyfully receive for ourselves and others the blessings of community, sexuality, marriage, and the family. We commit ourselves to the rights of men, women, children, youth, young adults, the aging, and people with disabilities; to improvement of the quality of life; and to the rights and dignity of all persons. We believe in the right and duty of persons to work for the glory of God and the good of themselves and others and in the protection of their welfare in so doing; in the rights to property as a trust from God, collective bargaining, and responsible consumption; and in the elimination of economic and social distress. We dedicate ourselves to peace throughout the world, to the rule of justice and law among nations, and to individual freedom for all people of the world. We believe in the present and final triumph of God’s Word in human affairs and gladly accept our commission to manifest the life of the gospel in the world. Amen.
United Methodist Church (The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2012)
It is true that the higher men can climb by the use of their knowledge, the lower they can fall through its misuse. It is up to us to put our growing knowledge to good use. For unless we all remember, at home and in our thinking about distant people, to treat them as we wish to be treated ourselves, all our plans for fun and happiness, all the beauty and fine freedom and hope of our lives, may be darkened by shadows that cover the world.
Jane Werner Watson (The Golden History of the World: A Child's Introduction to Ancient and Modern Times (Giant Golden Book))
freewill defense goes a long way toward a solution. Essentially, the freewill defense states that many, if not most, of the world’s ills are due to the human misuse of freedom.
Michael Lodahl (The Story of God: A Narrative Theology (updated))
There was, he said, something pervasive going on that was changing the tone and character of the national discourse. An obsession with celebrity, epitomized by paparazzi chasing down stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, was becoming ubiquitous. Magazines and newspapers that “purport to be responsible organs” were making “these pompous and condescending decisions about lives, about facts and situations.” Where did that lead? As Marlon explained later, “I was concerned that the freedoms enshrined by the First Amendment were being misused to create a press that faced no consequences for diminishing the intelligence of the nation.
William J. Mann (The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando)
Sometimes people can get it into their heads that anything they enjoy is probably a sin. But let’s go back to the story of Creation. Eve points out that she can eat of any of the trees in the Garden. God is not a God of scarcity; he is not even a God of rules. He is the God of gift, the God of abundance and freedom. God made this world for us to thrive in it. It is only when we misuse or abuse his good gifts that our lives—like the fuel pump in my car—begin to break down.
Michael Schmitz (Pocket Guide to the Sacrament of Reconciliation (The Pocket Guide Series))
The vote only empowers you to represent abilities, whereas the beauty of work and actuality of capability qualify you as a true leader; otherwise, the majority vote is just a power game, not insight.” Ziauddin Khawaja, known as Ziauddin Butt, in the military coup against the elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, on October 12, 1999, under secret and mutual interests, assured the four corps commanders of that time of their loyalty to the army and in favor of General Musharraf. Military treachery was preferred over democratic values and the constitutional protection of the elected Prime Minister. If General Butt was a patriot, the worst general in history, Musharraf, would never have dared to hand over our beloved country to foreign forces. Every general tries to be a patriot and a hero after retirement. As many generals as there were in Pakistan and they broke, abrogated, or suspended the constitution from any angle, they were and are complete traitors to the Pakistani state, nation, and constitution, but also to the morale of the great forces, along with the traitorous judges of the judiciary, who participated equally. Not repeating such factors is a nation’s survival; otherwise, there will be no uniforms and no freedom. Staying within every institution’s limits is patriotism; give exemplary proof of your patriotism, and you are all subservient to the Constitution and those elected under the Constitution. Your oath is your declaration of respect and protection of democratic values; its violation is treason against the country and nation. On the other hand, Pakistani political parties and their leadership do not qualify in the context of politics since, if they are in power or opposition, they seek favor from the Armed Forces for their democratic dictatorship. The honest fact is that Pakistanis neither wanted nor wished to establish real democratic values and their enforcement. Lawmakers are unqualified and incapable of fulfilling the context of the Constitution, which is the essence of a pure and honest democracy with fair and transparent elections as per the will of voters, which never happened in Pakistan. Examples are visible and open to the world, even though no one feels sorry or ashamed for such an immoral, illegitimate, and unconstitutional mindset and trend of the Pakistani leadership of all political parties. Huge and widespread corruption is a threat to the Pakistani economy and people’s prosperity. IMF support and other benefits go into the hands of corrupt officials instead of prioritizing the well-being of society or individuals. Imposing taxes without prosperity in society and for people who already live below the poverty line is economic violence, not a beneficial impact. The fact is bare that the establishment misuses leaders and leaders misuse the establishment, which has become a national trend; consequently, state, nation, and constitution remain football for them, and they have been playing it for more than seven decades, losing the resources of land and people for their conflicts of interest. I can only suggest that you stop such a game before you defeat yourself.
Ehsan Sehgal
As another example, if, through deceit and lies, you caused someone to go to jail unjustly, you may find yourself at some future point imprisoned for a crime that you did not commit. If you then accept what is happening and learn all you can from the experience, you will balance and clear the karmic debt. But if you go into hate, anger, and revenge, you will perpetuate your karma and get to experience it again and again until you learn to bring yourself into balance with it. You might not experience imprisonment as a physical prison experience, but perhaps you might find yourself “trapped” in a job you cannot stand and unable, for some reason, to change that situation. You might find yourself “trapped” in a family situation or in a marriage. There are a lot of ways to be imprisoned. When something happens that appears to hurt you, rather than resisting it and pushing it away, you will embrace it. You will expand your consciousness to encompass the changes and the new situation and to find what new freedoms are available to you. When you begin to understand karma, you can begin to realize that some actions that appear to be “bad” may be actions of fulfilling karma and, therefore, right and proper within that framework. For example, in a previous lifetime, a mother abandons her child and leaves it in the hands of people who do not really care for the child. Because the mother refused to accept and handle her responsibility for the child, the child grew up unloved, abused, misused, and leading a very unhappy, embittered life. The child reembodies at some point, grows up, and has a child of her own, who happens to be her mother from the previous life. She may feel no love for her baby and may abandon it, giving it the opportunity to have the same experience and learn what it is like to be abandoned and unloved. People who observe this might be apt to judge this mother for abandoning the child, when she is actually only fulfilling the karma and bringing to the other consciousness the experience that is necessary to free it from the karma it had created in that other lifetime. So unless you can read the karmic records and see what is within each person’s heart, it is best not to judge actions that appear to be unusual or cruel. It may be an action fulfilling a karmic debt.
John-Roger (Fulfilling Your Spiritual Promise)
Mirza Masroor is not the Present Khalifa Of Islam He is only a cozener of a fake Religion --- Misusing of the internet and Google Search has become a beneficial tool for fake ones, and even such ones neither fall in international jurisdiction nor considered dangerous that damage others' values and realities. It is a collapse of the truth in the mirror and the context of the minorities' right to freedom, which is under the process of falsehood in all its directions and dimensions. The fake Messiah, or Jesus Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiyani and his all fake khalifas fooled Christianity and Islam, and they continuously practice on this false claim of the prophetic mission. Wikipedia, the unreliable and untrusty encyclopedia, facilitates the way of command to a minority of the fake prophet upon a clear majority of Muslims and Christians. The followers of a fake Hindustani Jesus Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiyani entered world media and websites such as Wikipedia to publicize their wrong and false mission. Qadiyanis are doubtlessly termites of religion, who have challenged, not only Islam but factually, also Christianity with the creation of fake Jesus. Virtually, I have been the victim of Qadiyanis during my contribution to the Wiki-project to maintain standards and neutrality of it; thereupon, a gang of Qadiyanis succeeded that I left Wikipedia, and they, with the collaboration of my opponent ones, also managed to delete my article in Wikipedia. Not only that, but they also tried hard to eliminate me from the net-world, but thanks to Google Search, which significantly displayed Ehsan Sehgal more than that it was. Consequently, they stayed humiliated with their actions of bad-faith. These days on social media, a non-Muslim, non-Christian; however, self-made and self-claimed, Mr. Miraza Masroor Ahmad is in Google Search as Present Khalifa Of Islam, which is indeed not only incorrect only; it is a shameless and false claim for provoking the real Muslims. As a fact, Qadiyanis are neither Muslim nor Christian; they are just grifters and cozeners. Qadiyanis know that they deliberately victimize Muslims theoretically to become practically victimizers, for achieving empathy and sympathy from Westerners stupids and idiots, who have even not a little knowledge and study about Islam and Christianity, except media discriminations and wrong interpretations with the ill-mental context.
Ehsan Sehgal
People given freedom invariably misused it, and ultimately sold it off, usually for a pittance.
Jay Allan (The Black Flag (Crimson Worlds Successors, #3))
The knowledge, therefore, that is symbolized by the forbidden fruit is a partial and fragmentary knowledge, a knowledge which fails to grasp the absolute dependence of all things upon their Creator. It is a reduced knowledge which perceives the world not as a theophany but as a sequence of contingencies: not sub specie aeternitatis but under the aspect of temporality. And it is only in this fragmented world wherein all things are in a state of perpetual flux that evil and death enter upon the scene. They enter thus, on the one hand, as the inescapable concomitant of a fragmentary knowledge, a knowledge of things as divorced from God; and at the same time they enter as the dire consequences of'disobedience' -the misuse of man's God-given freedom-and so as 'the wages of sin'.
Wolfgang Smith (Cosmos and Transcendence: Breaking Through the Barrier of Scientistic Belief)
When we’re hit with a temptation that could destroy everything, we rarely think, This will destroy everything. It will cost me dearly, possibly for the rest of my life. I will live with regret about the ongoing devastation I’ve caused. But I’m going to do it. No, we usually narrow our focus to avoid thinking about what we’re really doing, which is misusing our freedom to hurt and destroy all that we’ve worked for and all those around us.
Brant Hansen (The Men We Need: God’s Purpose for the Manly Man, the Avid Indoorsman, or Any Man Willing to Show Up (Christian Book on Masculinity & Gift Idea for Father's Day or Graduation Gift for Guys))
Whenever the media, anchors, and journalists become the pawns of political parties and their propaganda clowns, they not only ignore their journalistic prestige but even misuse, discredit, and affront their freedom and neutrality. In this way, they have to reap the consequences of their unprofessional role.
Ehsan Sehgal
Your word is pure magic, and misuse of your word is black magic.
Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom)
Do You Realize? *** My question is to the World and States and Nations that, would you recognize, accept, and allow on the ground of freedom and human rights; If I set up a fake The United Nations If I organize a bogus The White House If I fabricate a fictitious 10 Downing Street If I establish a counterfeit, The Moscow Kremlin If I institute a false The European Union If I build up an illegitimate the Roman Catholic Church If I create such other phony institutions for deceiving and fooling all the genuine ones? Sure, your answer will be as it is impossible, such an answer carries authentic logic, but why then mostly entire Europe, the United States, and Canada stay silent on the matter of a fake Mirza Ghulam Ahmadi Qadiyani as Jesus and his followers who claim themselves as real Muslims and they build Mosques to falsify and deceive the real Muslims. Factually, they are neither Muslim nor Christian nor a sect of these two recognized religions; they are just a false religious gang for their evil practices and motives. The States and Nations of the world should ban that religious termite, and stop them from misuse of true Islam, and creating Mosques to fool the Muslims. The world should take action and decide regardless of the political privileges and needs for their power before the fake Jesus ride on the minds of the Christians since he is neither real Jesus of Christians nor Muslims
Ehsan Sehgal
God gave freedom to man, and man has misused that freedom; this is the cause of all suffering.
Paramahansa Yogananda (Man's Eternal Quest: Collected Talks & Essays on Realizing God in Daily Life, Volume I)
Any apparent insurrection of bodily or cerebral cells towards Emperor Soul, manifesting as disease or depression, is due to no disloyalty among the humble citizens, but to past or present misuse by man of his individuality or free will, given to him simultaneous with a soul and revocable never. Identifying himself with a shallow ego, man takes for granted that it is he who thinks, wills, feels, digests meals and keeps himself alive, never admitting through reflection (only a little would suffice!) that in his ordinary life he is naught but a puppet of past actions (karma) and of nature or environment. Each man’s intellectual reactions, feelings, moods and habits are circumscribed by effects of past causes, whether of this or a prior life. Lofty above such influences, however, is his regal soul. Spurning the transitory truths and freedoms, the kriya yogi passes beyond all disillusionment into his unfettered Being. All scriptures declare man to be not a corruptible body, but a living soul; by kriya he is given a method to prove the scriptural truth.
Paramahansa Yogananda (The Autobiography of a Yogi ("Popular Life Stories"))
Because the word is the magic that humans possess and misuse of the word is black magic, we are using black magic all the time without knowing that our word is magic at all.
Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom)
word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you. One edge is the misuse of the word, which creates a living hell. The other edge is the impeccability of the word, which will only create beauty, love, and heaven on earth. Depending upon how it is used, the word can set you free, or it can enslave you even more than you know. All the magic you possess is based on your
Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom)
Many of Paul’s friends would have assured him that the tendency to misuse the freedom of the Spirit as an excuse for enthusiastic licence could be checked only by a stiff dose of law. But Paul could not agree: the principle of law was so completely opposed to spiritual freedom that it could never be enlisted in defence of that freedom: nothing was more certainly calculated to kill true freedom. The freedom of the Spirit was the antidote alike to legal bondage and unrestrained licence.
F.F. Bruce (Epistle to the Galatians (New International Greek Testament Commentary))
The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life. You can speak. What other animal on the planet can speak? The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you. One edge is the misuse of the word, which creates a living hell. The other edge is the impeccability of the word, which will only create beauty, love, and heaven on earth. Depending upon how it is used, the word can set you free, or it can enslave you even more than you know. All the magic you possess is based on your word. Your word is pure magic, and misuse of your word is black magic.
Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom)
Habermas writes: “The ideals of freedom . . . of conscience, human rights and democracy [are] the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. . . . To this day there is no alternative to it.”17 None of this denies that science and reason are sources of enormous and irreplaceable good for human society. The point is rather that science alone cannot serve as a guide for human society.18 This was well summarized in a speech that was written for but never delivered at the Scopes “monkey trial”: “Science is a magnificent material force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. . . . Science does not [and cannot] teach brotherly love.”19 Secular, scientific reason is a great good, but if taken as the sole basis for human life, it will be discovered that there are too many things we need that it is missing.
Timothy J. Keller (Making Sense of God: Finding God in the Modern World)
Note; Someone succeeded, to remove the previous image of a false prophet, or managed to remove that through the Facebook team, misusing the freedom of press and speech. Added another image. Admin- 26-06-2019 The Islam states, No One Reborn The followers of the Ahmadiyya movement are active in Pakistani media, and all institutions of the state, pretending as non-Ahmadiyya, even they abuse Ahmadiyya followers so that they can practice their fake role within the real Muslims. The same practices display in other countries, with all resources. I avoid, to dig into the details of the topic that I am going to execute in its reality. Ahmadis or such ones, who have understood the Quran as they wanted, and as their knowledge. Jesus and Khatam an-Nabiyyin, Muhammad; (PBUH). The ending of the prophecy is visible as; "These hadith reports are to be found in the most reliable of the Hadith collections, i.e. Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmizi, Nisa'i, Ibn Maja, etc. It may be noted that in these hadith reports, the Prophet Muhammad has used several different ways to explain that he is the Last Prophet." In the authentic reports that the last prophet Muhamad declares as saying, La Nabiyya Ba`di, means, There is no prophet after me. Such a verdict is beyond, for discussion. Besides that, when I understand, as a true Muslim that, "According to Islam and all divinely revealed religions, when a person dies on earth he will not be reborn until the Day of Resurrection." Quran says, "How can ye reject the faith in Allah?- seeing that ye were without life, and He gave you life; then will He cause you to die, and will again bring you to life, and again to Him will ye return." [Quran 2:28] Ahmadis’ ideology is that Jesus lived and died, the question is that they reject the Quran since the Quran states when a person dies on earth, he will not be reborn until the Day of Resurrection. How it possible was that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was reborn, as Jesus? As a fact, Jesus will raise and reappear, having no father, brother, or sister. Ahmadis falsify not only Islam but also Christianity. Ehsan Sehgal
Ehsan Sehgal
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.
Daniel Utrecht (The Lion of Munster: The Bishop Who Roared Against the Nazis)
Alice leaned first one way and then the other, down the line of children. She said, Is everybody understanding this?" One child said, "The misuse of power is the root of all evil?" Alice said, "Well...." Another child said, "There is no justice on the earth?" Alice said, "Well..." Another child said, "We are all alone in the world?" Alice said, "Well..." Another child said, "The greatest depth of our loss is the beginning of true freedom?" Alice said, "Well..." Another child said, "The disposal of human waste is the responsibility of the brokenhearted?" These were all phrases Alice had put on the chalkboard after other field trips. It occurred to Alice, hearing these phrases now, that she might have attempted to do too much with a class of fourth graders. She was willing to admit to some excesses. Alice said, "Just listen.
Lewis Nordan (Wolf Whistle)
intellectual and moral blindness is a dilemma which man inflicts upon himself by his tragic misuse of freedom and his failure to use his mind to it's fullest capacity.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Moral evil He cannot will, either as end or means, for that would contradict his holiness. By creating free beings He permits it only, neither his justice nor his goodness obliging Him to prevent the recipients of freedom from misusing the gift.
William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience)
We all know pretty well that something we value is threatened, but when we try to say what, we’re left with a bunch of big words like justice, freedom, honour, truth and so on, that embarrass us, because they’ve been misused so often they sound like platform claptrap.
Jill Paton Walsh (A Presumption of Death (Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane, #2))