We will be a better country when each religious group can trust its members to obey the dictates of their own religious faith without assistance from the legal structure of the country.
Interpretation
True freedom in a diverse society allows individuals to follow their own beliefs without interference from the law.
This quote by Margaret Mead emphasizes the importance of allowing individuals to practice their faith freely, suggesting that a society flourishes when various religious groups can trust their members to adhere to their beliefs independently of governmental intervention. It advocates for a separation between legal systems and personal faith, promoting a vision of harmony and mutual respect among different beliefs.
In practice
In a discussion about religious freedom at a community meeting.
Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous communication through space.
Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, doesn't pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.
EARTH DAY uses one of humanity's great discoveries, the discovery of anniversaries by which, throughout time, human beings have kept their sorrows and their joys, their victories, their revelations and their obligations alive, for re-celebration and re-dedication another year, another decade, another century, another eon.
American society is very like a fish society. . . . Among certain species of fish, the only thing which determines order of dominance is length of time in the fishbowl. The oldest resident picks on the newest resident, and if the newest resident is removed to a new bowl, he, as oldest resident, will pick on the newcomers.
Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.
To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.
No one is ever satisfied where he is.
For a man's house is his castle, et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium [and one's home is the safest refuge to everyone].
Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems.
Parody by itself is not subversive, and there must be a way to understand what makes certain kinds of parodic repetitions effectively disruptive, truly troubling, and which repetitions become domesticated and recirculated as instruments of cultural hegemony
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