“Americans experience time in two distinct ways—as religious people and as people of no religion. Just so, we experience ourselves as a historical people and as people who are not implicated by history.”

— Richard Rodríguez

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

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Richard Rodríguez 127

American journalist and essayist 1944

Vine Deloria Jr. (1933–2005) American writer

Source: God Is Red (1973), p. 293

“You owe it to the American people to tell us what you are for, not just what you’re against. That way we can have a vigorous and meaningful debate. That’s what the American people deserve. That’s what the times demand. It’s not enough anymore to just say we should just get our government out of the way and let the unfettered market take care of it -- for our experience tells us that’s just not true.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)
Context: If you still don’t like Obamacare -- and I know you don’t even though it’s built on market-based ideas of choice and competition in the private sector, then you should explain how, exactly, you’d cut costs, and cover more people, and make insurance more secure. You owe it to the American people to tell us what you are for, not just what you’re against. That way we can have a vigorous and meaningful debate. That’s what the American people deserve. That’s what the times demand. It’s not enough anymore to just say we should just get our government out of the way and let the unfettered market take care of it -- for our experience tells us that’s just not true.

“We should not argue with the blind man who maintained that sight was an illusion to which some abnormal people were subject. Therefore in speaking of religious experience I do not attempt to prove the existence of religious experience…”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Source: Science and the Unseen World (1929), Ch. IV, p.48-49

“If the truth of religious doctrines is dependent on an inner experience that bears witness to the truth, what is one to make of the many people who do not have that experience?”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927)

“Love is a joint experience between two persons -- but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved.”

Carson McCullers (1917–1967) American writer

Source: The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories

“We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)
Context: We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure -- our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow-capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.