“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King Jr
Here is a longer version:
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Here is another of his quotes with a similar thought process:
Man was born into barbarism
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
when killing his fellow man
was a normal condition of existence.
He became endowed with a conscience.
And he has now reached the day
when violence toward another human being
must become as abhorrent as eating another’s flesh.
Why We Can’t Wait, 1963
At the times that they were writing the various bibles, society appears to have been a brutal time. There were warring nations, domestic bloodshed, and destructive natural disasters. The stories from scripture show the violent nature of mankind’s existence on earth. If you can cast your mind back to when your mind was operating before civilisation, you can realize that there were no rules about rape, murder, and theft. These were normal practices. Civilization brought civilizing rules. It brought the rules for engagement between people and the methods of operating to create a coordinated society. Under Moses, the rules were negative and harsh. They favoured the followers of Moses and disfavoured all others. “You shall rule over many people, but no people shall rule over thee.” and “These lands that I give you, you shall kill the inhabitants therein.” You could not call these people ‘Christian’ as Jesus was still 1500 years away. You can call them Hebrew. Some might call them Jewish, but the term did not exist at that time. You might also notice that the rules tended to be negative as in: “Don’t do this.” and “Don’t do that” with a prescribed punishment of being stoned to death or hung from a tree until dead.
Jesus changed the rules. He effectively said: “You people are doing things wrong. You must start to be good to each other.” This brought a new dimension of ‘common decency’. He described those that operated to the rules of Moses as being “Heard of heart.” The followers of Moses lacked compassion.
