Monday, December 14, 2009

WORLD - President Accepts Peace Prize

Wartime President Accepts Peace Prize with an 'American Speech'"


Shields and Brooks on Obama's Nobel Speech, senate Health Bill"

These are excerpts I find most meaningful.

BARACK OBAMA:

These extremists (today's) are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war.

Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but I believe it's incompatible with the very purpose of faith -- for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

For, if we lose that faith -- if we dismiss it as silly or naive; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace -- then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.

Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. Let us reach for the world that ought to be -- that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.

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