Jesus of Nazareth said "Thou shalt love thy neighbor" and "do to others what you would have them do to you". The Buddha said "everything depends on everything else. The one contains the many and the many contains the one" and "The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you". The Dalai Lama said "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." and "We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves." Secular Humanism says "We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations" and "We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness"
In every society resides a philosophy. In fact we can find examples of love and tolerance within these philosophies, often times in large troves, and yet we find people who need no excuse to commit heinous atrocities on one another, either in the name of or in purposeful ignorance of said philosophy. This is why I am glad to be a part of the push back against intolerance and ignorance. I am willing to take a stand against theocracy. For the secular state I am willing to fight. For the secular state we live in gives permission to question all things, even the state itself. Having the freedom of mind to question leads to the betterment of all humanity. Freedom of mind is the antonym of pessimism, despair, and fear.
