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The Most Dangerous Type Of Atheism Is Not Theoretical Atheism, But Practical Atheism -that's The Most Dangerous Type. And The World, Even The Church, Is Filled Up With People Who Pay Lip Service To God And Not Life Service. And There Is Always A Danger That We Will Make It Appear Externally That We Believe In God When Internally We Don't. We Say With Our Mouths That We Believe In Him, But We Live With Our Lives Like He Never Existed. That Is The Ever-present Danger Confronting Religion. That's A Dangerous Type Of Atheism.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The Most Dangerous Type

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The Most Dangerous Type Of Atheism Is Not Theoretical Atheism, But Practical Atheism -that's The Most Dangerous Type. And The World, Even The Church, Is Filled Up With People Who Pay Lip Service To God And Not Life Service. And There Is Always A Danger That We Will Make It Appear Externally That We Believe In God When Internally We Don't. We Say With Our Mouths That We Believe In Him, But We Live With Our Lives Like He Never Existed. That Is The Ever-present Danger Confronting Religion. That's A Dangerous Type Of Atheism.

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There May Have Been A Time When War Served As A Negative Good By Preventing The Spread And Growth Of An Evil Force, But The Destructive Power Of Modern Weapons Eliminates Even The Possibility That War May Serve As A Negative Good.

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.

The Marvelous New Militancy Which Has Engulfed The Negro Community Must Not Lead Us To A Distrust Of All White People, For Many Of Our White Brothers, As Evidenced By Their Presence Here Today, Have Come To Realize That Their Destiny Is Tied Up With Our Destiny And Their Freedom Is Inextricably Bound To Our Freedom.

The Great Majority Of Americans Are Suspended Between These Opposing Attitudes. They Are Uneasy With Injustice But Unwilling Yet To Pay A Significant Price To Eradicate It.

"i Criticize America Because I Love Her. I Want Her To Stand As A Moral Example To The World."

You Know, My Friends, There Comes A Time When People Get Tired Of Being Trampled Over By The Iron Feet Of Oppression.

A Piece Of Freedom Is No Longer Enough For Human Beings...unlike Bread, A Slice Of Liberty Does Not Finish Hunger. Freedom Is Like Life. It Cannot Be Had In Installments. Freedom Is Indivisible--we Have It All, Or We Are Not Free.

But By All Means, Keep Moving.

Hate Destroys The Very Structure Of The Personality Of The Hater. [...] When You Start Hating Anybody, It Destroys The Very Center Of Your Creative Response To Life And The Universe; So Love Everybody.

I Always Had A Deep Affection For Malcolm And Felt That He Had A Great Ability To Put His Finger On The Existence And The Root Of The Problem. He Was An Eloquent Spokesman For His Point Of View And No One Can Honestly Doubt That Malcolm Had A Great Concern For The Problems We Face As A Race.

I Feel That Non-violence Is Really The Only Way That We Can Follow Because Violence Is Just So Self-defeating. A Riot Ends Up Creating Many More Problems For The Negro Community Than It Solved. We Can Through Violence Burn Down A Building, But You Can't Establish Justice. You Can Murder A Murderer, But You Can't Murder Murder Through Violence. You Can Murder A Hater, But You Can't Murder Hate. And What We're Trying To Get Rid Of Is Hate, Injustice, And All Of These Other Things That Continue The Long Night Of Man's Inhumanity To Man.

In Our Struggle Against Racial Segregation In Montgomery, Alabama, I Came To See At A Very Early Stage That A Synthesis Of Gandhi's Method Of Nonviolence And The Christian Ethic Of Love Is The Best Weapon Available To Negroes For This Struggle For Freedom And Human Dignity. It May Well Be That The Gandhian Approach Will Bring About A Solution To The Race Problem In America. His Spirit Is A Continual Reminder To Oppressed People That It Is Possible To Resist Evil And Yet Not Resort To Violence.

I Am Not Unmindful That Some Of You Have Come Here Out Of Great Trials And Tribulations. Some Of You Have Come Fresh From Narrow Cells. Some Of You Have Come From Areas Where Your Quest For Freedom Left You Battered By The Storms Of Persecution And Staggered By The Winds Of Police Brutality. You Have Been The Veterans Of Creative Suffering. Continue To Work With The Faith That Unearned Suffering Is Redemptive.

The Christians Who Engaged In Infamous Persecutions And Shameful Inquisitions Were Not Evil Men But Misguided Men. The Churchmen Who Felt They Had An Edict From God To Withstand The Progress Of Science, Whether In The Form Of A Copernican Revolution Or A Darwinian Theory Of Natural Selection, Were Not Mischievous Men But Misinformed Men. And So Christ's Words From The Cross Are Written In Sharp-edged Terms Across Some Of The Most Inexpressible Tragedies Of History: 'they Know Not What They Do'.

To Sway An Audience, You Must Watch Them As You Speak.

Every Person Must Stand Up And Be Accountable, But Be Responsible For Their Actions.

Being Responsible

I Imagine You Already Know That I Am Much More Socialistic In My Economic Theory Than Capitalistic. And Yet I Am Not So Opposed To Capitalism That I Have Failed To See Its Relative Merits. It Started Out With A Noble And High Motive, To Block The Trade Monopolies Of Nobles, But Like Most Human Systems It Falls Victim To The Very Thing It Was Revolting Against. So Today Capitalism Has Outlived Its Usefulness. It Has Brought About A System That Takes Necessities From The Masses To Give Luxuries To The Classes.

For More Than Two Centuries Our Foreparents Labored Here Without Wages; They Made Cotton King; And They Built The Homes Of Their Masters In The Midst Of Brutal Injustice And Shameful Humiliation - And Yet Out Of A Bottomless Vitality Our People Continue To Thrive And Develop.

Justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied.

I Know That God Is Not Going To Willfully Hurt Us. Why There Is Suffering Is The Business Of The Lord, But He Never Seems To Give Us More Than We Can Bear.

If We Get Setbacks And If Something Happens Where The Civil Rights Bill Is Watered Down, For Instance, If The Negro Feels That He Can Do Nothing But Move From One Ghetto To Another And One Slum To Another, The Despair And The Disappointment Will Be So Great That It Will Be Very Difficult To Keep The Struggle Disciplined And Nonviolent.

School Takes 13 Years, Because That Is How Long It Takes To Break A Child's Spirit.

We As Christians Have A Mandate To Be Nonconformists.

The Moral Arc Of The Universe Bends At The Elbow Of Justice.

But Now I Must Affirm That It Is Just As Wrong, Or Perhaps Even More So, To Use Moral Means To Preserve Immoral Ends.

If A Man Hasn't Found Anything Worth Dying For, He Hasn't Anything Worth Living For.

To Put It In The Terms Of St. Thomas Aquinas: An Unjust Law Is A Human Law That Is Not Rooted In Eternal Law And Natural Law.

Violence Is Not Only Impractical But Immoral.

The Strong Man Holds In A Living Blend Strongly Marked Opposites.

We Must Work Passionately And Unrelentingly For The Goal Of Freedom, But We Must Be Sure That Our Hands Are Clean In The Struggle. We Must Never Struggle With Falsehood, Hate, Or Malice. We Must Never Become Bitter.

We Must Recognize That We Can't Solve Our Problems Now Until There Is A Radical Redistribution Of Economic And Political Power.... A Radical Restructuring Of The Architecture Of American Society.

There Is A Magnificent New Militancy Within The Negro Community All Across This Nation. And I Welcome This As A Marvelous Development. The Negro Of America Is Saying He's Determined To Be Free And He Is Militant Enough To Stand Up.

It Is Appalling That The Most Segregated Hour Of Christian America Is Eleven O'clock On Sunday Morning.

The Day We See The Truth And Cease To Speak Is The Day We Begin To Die

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.

It Is Obvious Today That America Has Defaulted On This Promissory Note Insofar As Her Citizens Of Color Are Concerned. Instead Of Honoring This Sacred Obligation, America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

Only In The Darkness Can You See The Stars.

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