Don't raise me up, I am but a messenger.

To make the State your god is to worship an idol, for the State is a man-made creation arising naturally out of tribal communion; but the soul, if such there be, is a god-made miracle and above all national or patriotic standards – the supreme and eternal reality.

Atheism and agnosticism signify the rejection of certain images and concepts of God or of truth, which are historically conditioned and therefore inadequate. Atheism is a challenge to religion to purifiy its images and concepts and come nearer to the truth of divine mystery.

And one fine day the goddess of the wind kisses the foot of man, that mistreated, scorned foot, and from that kiss the soccer idol is born. He is born in a straw crib in a tin-roofed shack and he enters the world clinging to a ball.

The ball laughs, radiant, in the air. He brings her down, puts her to sleep, showers her with compliments, dances with her, and seeing such things never before seen his admirers pity their unborn grandchildren who will never see them.

Whose vow can you abide by? You can take a vow of an idol, because an idol has no ownership. You can abide by a vow of a living being, provided he is not the owner of his body, however if he is the owner of his body, you cannot take his vow, because one day he will make you stumble.

THAT you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves, from these you do well. Acts 15:29