Reply #132: This is not the same as scripture... [View All]

It doesn't suggest that one needs to believe in a god to be a decent human being or to achieve happiness. The Beatitudes speak of the blessings one will receive from a god, not the better world one can create by showing kindness and developing empathy and awareness.

I suggest to you that the following Jesus quotes would receive a warmer welcome:

“He who rules his spirit has won a greater victory than the taking of a city.”

“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”

"For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Or perhaps these, from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.:

"Without love, benevolence becomes egotism"

"We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers."

"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love."