« Quoi de plus fatal que de traiter en ennemis et d’envoyer à la mort des hommes qui n’ont commis d’autre crime que celui de penser avec indépendance ? »

«What, I ask, can be more fatal than that men should be considered enemies and condemned to death, not because of any wickedness or crime, but because they have a mind worthy of a free man? »

 

Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677), in Traité Théologico-Politique, 1670, est un philosophe néerlandais dont la pensée se rattache au courant rationaliste. Cette dernière aura une influence majeure sur la pensée des autres auteurs de son époque.

A friend’s memory:

My husband was in a mission and had to live in the Arizona desert for a while.

I moved to Arizona with him and stayed in a little house. After a while, I realized how much I hated that place. The heat was unbearable and everything was covered in sand.

All the local people were Aboriginals and Mexicans. I had to stay alone every day at that miserable hut called home. I couldn’t take it any longer. I wanted to leave and go back home to my family, even if it would cost my marriage.

I wrote a letter to my Dad, he was the smartest and I always relied on his opinion. I waited for his reply.

His letter changed my life forever. The content was only two sentences. “Behind the prison bars, two prisoners were standing.

One was looking at the dirt and the other…