Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes Pertinent To U*U Injustices, Abuses, Hypocrisy, And Yes. . . Stupidity

In that today is Martin Luther King Day aka MLK Day I have decided to provide a selection of quotations from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that are quite pertinent to U*U injustices, abuses, hypocrisy and stupidity. Of course they are quite pertinent to injustices, abuses, hypocrisy and stupidity much more generally. I will probably add some appropriate links to these Martin Luther King quotes later.


There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

The time is always right to do what is right.

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.

We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

Comments

Anonymous said…
wow man you're totally twisted. it's kind of sad but comical. for this article you really shoulda stepped up on the research because you might have picked up on the fact that MLK and his wife attended UU churches all through their higher education. Eventually of course with the civil rights movement MLK needed to get back to black churches but you're argument is absolutely void because no matter how much you want to twist his words, there is too much love for the UU church for anything he says to be derogatory to UUs. But besides that, you're obviously a loon because how in the world were you "excommunicated" from the most liberal organized religion in the world. there really must be no where for you. Come on man. find something else to bicker about, this is ridiculous and stands on clay feet. I'm still curious as to how you managed it. peace
Robin Edgar said…
Actually SuperJoet if anyone is "totally twisted" it is you for being totally unable to comprehend that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words are broadly applicable to any and all injustices and oppression or the fight against them and are most certainly applicable to U*U injustices, abuses and oppression and my fight against them.

:for this article you really shoulda stepped up on the research because you might have picked up on the fact that MLK and his wife attended UU churches all through their higher education.

This is not an "article" it is simply a selection of Rev. Martin Luther King quotes that are highly applicable to my own and other people's situations with respect to U*U injustices, abuses and hypocrisy etc. I am quite aware that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta attended U*U "churches". It is my understanding that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. rejected Unitarian*Universalism not just because it was too white but also because because it was too Godless and too full of moral relativism.

I dare say that you really shoulda stepped up on the research yourself because you might have picked up on the fact that MLK rejected Unitarian*Universalism because it doesn't deal with "sin" very well. . . I dare say that Martin Luther King Jr. might well agree that The Emerson Avenger blog does a pretty good job of demonstrating just how poorly U*Us deal with their own "sins". . .

Here is another somewhat lengthy Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. quote for you to read and give some thought to -

There is one phase of liberalism that I hope to cherish always: its devotion to the search for truth, its refusal to abandon the best light of reason. . . . It was . . . the liberal doctrine of man that I began to question. The more I observed the tragedies of history, and man's shameful inclination to choose the low road, the more I came to see the depths and strength of sin. . . . I came to feel that liberalism had been all too sentimental concerning human nature and that it leaned toward a false idealism. I also came to see that liberalism's superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin. . . . Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.

:Eventually of course with the civil rights movement MLK needed to get back to black churches but you're argument is absolutely void because no matter how much you want to twist his words, there is too much love for the UU church for anything he says to be derogatory to UUs.

Actually it is your own "sad but comical" argumentation here that is utterly void SuperJoet. Rev. Martin Luther King's words quoted here, including the lengthy quote above that explains why he rejected U*Uism, are very generally applicable and they are most certainly highly applicable to my protests against U*U injustices, abuses and hypocrisy. I am not twisting Martin Luther King's words at all. I have provided accurate quotations and if you are unable to see how they are applicable to U*Us and U*Uism I would have to question your moral and ethical sensibility.

:But besides that, you're obviously a loon because how in the world were you "excommunicated" from the most liberal organized religion in the world.

One does not need to be a "loon" to be permanently expelled from a Unitarian Church. In my case all that I needed to do was to "tarnish the image" of the Unitarian Church of Montreal by publicly protest against very obvious and very well-documented U*U injustices, abuses and hypocrisy. In fact I was expelled for six months in 1997, before I even began my public protest, for doing nothing more than submitting an important letter of grievance to the Board of the Unitarian Church of Montreal that could have led to a genuinely just and equitable resolution to this conflict had the Board responsibly acted on the contents of that letter of grievance rather than arbitrarily rejecting it and unjustly expelling me for six months.

U*Us certainly claim to be the most liberal religion in the world but the faact of the matter is that U*U regularly say and do things that are anything but genuinely liberal. In fact I am highly justified in referring to U*Us as Totalitarian Unitarians when they say and do things that have all the hallmarks of totalitarianism. It might interest you to know that a former member of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, who was a respected human rights worker from an Eastyern European background, once described the repressive measures that Montreal Unitarians took to try to silence me as "Stalinistic". Indeed the kangaroo court disguised as a "special congregational meeting" in which Montreal Unitarians were persuaded by church leaders to permanently revoke my membership looked a lot like a Stalinistic "show trial." The person who presided over that kangaroo court as its "parlementarian" was none other than Franke Greene, the former President of the UCM who was guilty of labeling Creation Day as a "cult" and even making a derogatory "joke" that insinuated a link between Creation Day and the notorious Solar Temple cult.

:there really must be no where for you. Come on man. find something else to bicker about, this is ridiculous and stands on clay feet.

Actually it is your own words here that are quite ridiculous and stand on clay feet. Actually they are not even standing any more because I just shattered the clay. . . Congratulations on making a total U*U out of yourself here SuperJoet. I would say that you are suffering from a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease right now.

:I'm still curious as to how you managed it. peace

Guess what SuperJoet? Thanks to your words here some of these Martin Luther King Jr. quotes are now highly applicable to you, perhaps most especially this one -

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

You have certainly displayed a certain amount of sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity in your rather twisted comment on this post.
Robin Edgar said…
Well it looks like I well and truly nipped that one in the bud. . .

If only I had been as successful in nipping Rev. Ray Drennan's intolerant and abusive anti-religious U*U BS in the bud back in 1996, as I had hoped to be able to do. Where might the U*U World be today?