I can't for the life of me imagine that God would say, 'I will punish you because you are black; you should have been white. I will punish you because you are a woman; you should have been a man. I punish you because you are homosexual; you ought to have been heterosexual. I can't, I can't for the life of me believe that that is how God sees things.
Interpretation
The quote conveys the idea that God does not judge individuals based on race, gender, or sexual orientation.
Desmond Tutu's quote challenges societal prejudices by expressing a belief in a compassionate and inclusive God. He emphasizes that divine judgment should not be based on superficial characteristics such as race, gender, or sexual orientation, suggesting that God values the essence of a person over societal biases. This perspective encourages acceptance and love among all individuals, irrespective of their identities.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about equality and civil rights.
The fossil reserves that have already been discovered exceed what can ever be safely used. Yet companies spend half a trillion dollars each year searching for more fuel. They should redirect this money toward developing clean energy solutions
As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression, and injustice, the world has an even greateer instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom and love.
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.
Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone's back.
Gaza is going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.
In any language it is a struggle to make a sentence say exactly what you mean.
Science only answers the question, How does it work? Or at most, What's there? Science asks what and how, philosophy asks why, myth and religion ask who. Who's in charge here? Who's the author? That's what we really long to know.
It would be naïve to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems ... However, with faith and perseverance, ... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace.
It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.
Faith becomes lame, when it ventures into matters pertaining to reason!
I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.
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