《If There Were No After Life.doc》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《If There Were No After Life.doc（25页珍藏版）》请在三一办公上搜索。
1、-范文最新推荐- If There Were No After Life whether theres afterlife, the answer has never been the same. the atheists deny after life, believing that our life is no more than from the cradle to the grave. they may care about their illustrious names after death; they may feel attached to the affection of t
2、heir offspring, but they never lay their hopes on their afterlife. they may also say that good will be rewarded with good, and evil with evil, but they dont really believe any retribution in their after life.however, in the religious world or among the superstitious people, the belief in afterlife i
3、s very popular. they do not only believe in afterlife, but thousands of reincarnations as well. in the mysterious world, there are the paradise and the hell, the celestial beings and the gods, the buddha and the bodhisattvas.maybe they really believed it, or maybe they just wanted to make use of peo
4、ples veneration, the ancient emperors always declared that they were the real dragons, the sons of god, while the royal ministers claimed to be the reincarnations of various constellations. but can the stars reincarnate?many people burn incense and kowtow, do good deeds and strive for virtues, not j
5、ust for the present, but mainly to let god see their sincerity so as to be reborn into a better afterlife, or to achieve the highest enlightenment after several lives of practice. they do believe in afterlife. but i cant help asking: suppose there were no afterlife, would you still do good deeds and
6、 strive for virtues? and if god does not see what you are doing, would you still be so upright and selfless? if you work, not for serving the public and liberating the others, but just for a better afterlife of your own, isnt it a little too selfish? comparing with this kind of believers, those who
7、dont believe in afterlife, but still keep doing good deeds, are the most sincere and honest philanthropists, because they do them not for themselves but for other.you may wonder if i believe in afterlife. my answer is: i know nothing about my previous life, so i dare not make improper comments on af
8、terlife. but i do hope theres afterlife! because our present life is so short that so many things slip away before our proper understanding. i have so many dreams, so many wishes, so many ambitions, as well as so many regrets and concerns. if there were no afterlife, all of them will remain unrealiz
9、ed!im not contented with the present commonplace life, im very much attached to the affections that should have been mine but have been washed away by the hurrying time, and i yearn for the perfection and maturity if i could start all over again. so believe it or not, id rather there were afterlife.
10、 translated by zhang baodan (diana) edward m. kennedy: “chappaquiddick”my fellow citizens: i have requested this opportunity to talk to the people of massachusetts about the tragedy which happened last friday evening. this morning i entered a plea of guilty to the charge of leaving the scene of an a
11、ccident. prior to my appearance in court it would have been improper for me to comment on these matters. but tonight i am free to tell you what happened and to say what it means to me. on the weekend of july 18, i was on marthas vineyard island participating with my nephew, joe kennedy - as for thir
12、ty years my family has participated - in the annual edgartown sailing regatta. only reasons of health prevented my wife from accompanying me. on chappaquiddick island, off marthas vineyard, i attended, on friday evening, july 18, a cook-out, i had encouraged and helped sponsor for devoted group of k
13、ennedy campaign secretaries. when i left the party, around 11:15 p.m., i was accompanied by one of these girls, miss mary jo kopechne. mary j was one of the most devoted members of the staff of senator robert kennedy. she worked for him for four years and was broken up over his death. for this reaso
14、n, and because she was such a gentle, kind, and idealistic person, all of us tried to help her feel that she still had a home with the kennedy family. mary jo kopechnethere is not truth, not truth whatever, to the widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct that have been leveled at my behavior
15、and hers regarding that evening. there has never been a private relationship between us of any kind. i know of nothing in mary jos conduct on that or nay other occasion - the same is true of the other girls at that party - that would lend any substance to such ugly speculation about their character.
16、 nor was i driving under the influence of liquor. little over one mile away, the car that i was driving on the unlit road went of a narrow bridge which had no guard rails and was built on a left angle to the road. the car overturned in a deep pond and immediately filled with water. i remember thinki
17、ng as the cold water rushed in around my head that i was for certain drowning. then water entered my lungs and i actual felt the sensation of drowning. but somehow i struggled to the surface alive. i made immediate and repeated efforts to save mary jo be diving into strong and murky current, but suc
18、ceeded only in increasing my state of utter exhaustion and alarm. my conduct and conversations during the next several hours, to the extent that i can remember them, make no sense to me at all. although my doctors informed me that i suffered a cerebral concussion, as well as shock, i do not seek to
19、escape responsibility for my actions by placing the blame either in the physical, emotional trauma brought on by the accident, or on anyone else. i regard as indefensible the fact that i did not report the accident to the policy immediately.instead of looking directly for a telephone after lying exh
20、austed in the grass for an undetermined time, i walked back to the cottage where the party was being held and requested the help of two friends, my cousin, joseph gargan and phil markham, and directed them to return immediately to the scene with me - this was sometime after midnight - in order to un
21、dertake a new effort to dive down and locate miss kopechne. their strenuous efforts, undertaken at some risk to their own lives also proved futile. all kinds of scrambled thoughts - all of them confused, some of them irrational, many of them which i cannot recall, and some of which i would not have
22、seriously entertained under normal circumstances - went through my mind during this period. they were reflected in the various inexplicable, inconsistent, and inconclusive things i said and did, including such questions as whether the girl might still be alive somewhere out of that immediate area, w
23、hether some awful curse did actually hang over all the kennedys, whether there was some justifiable reason for me to doubt what has happened and to delay my report, whether somehow the awful weight of this incredible incident might, in some way, pass from my shoulders. i was overcome, im frank to sa
24、y, by a jumble of emotions, grief, fear, doubt, exhaustion, panic, confusion and shock. instructing gargan and markham not to alarm mary jos friends that night, i had them take me to the ferry crossing. the ferry having shut down for the night, i suddenly jumped into the water and impulsively swam a
25、cross, nearly drowning once again in the effort, and returned to my hotel about 2 a.m. and collapsed in my room. i remember going out at one point and saying something to the room clerk.in the morning, with my mind somewhat more lucid, i made an effort to call a family legal advisor, burke marshall,
26、 from a public telephone on the chappaquiddick side of the ferry and belatedly reported the accident to the marthas vineyard police.today, as i mentioned, i felt morally obligated to plead guilty to the charge of leaving the scene of an accident. no words on my part can possibly express the terrible
27、 pain and suffering i feel over this tragic incident. this last week has been an agonizing one for me and for the members of my family, and the grief we feel over the loss of a wonderful friend will remain with us the rest of our lives.these events, the publicity, innuendo, and whispers which have s
28、urrounded them and my admission of guilt this morning raises the question in my mind of whether my standing among the people of my state has been so impaired that i should resign my seat in the united states senate. if at any time the citizens of massachusetts should lack confidence in their senator
29、s character or his ability, with or without justification, he could not in my opinion adequately perform his duty and should not continue in office.the people of this state, the state which sent john quincy adams, and daniel webster, and charles sumner, and henry cabot lodge, and john kennedy to the
30、 united states senate are entitled to representation in that body by men who inspire their utmost confidence. for this reason, i would understand full well why some might think it right for me to resign. for me this will be a difficult decision to make.it has been seven years since my first election
31、 to the senate. you and i share many memories - some of them have been glorious, some have been very sad. the opportunity to work with you and serve massachusetts has made my life worthwhile.and so i ask you tonight, the people of massachusetts, to think this through with me. in facing this decision
32、, i seek your advice and opinion. in making it, i seek your prayers - for this is a decision that i will have finally to make on my own.it has been written a man does what he must in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles, and dangers, and pressures, and that is the basis of human mor
33、ality. whatever may be the sacrifices he faces, if he follows his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow man - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. the stories of the past courage cannot supply courage itself. for this
34、, each man must look into his own soul.i pray that i can have the courage to make the right decision. whatever is decided and whatever the future holds for me, i hope that i shall have been able to put this most recent tragedy behind me and make some further contribution to our state and mankind, wh
35、ether it be in public or private life.thank you and good night. spiro theodore agnew: television news coveragei think its obvious from the cameras here that i didnt come to discuss the ban on cyclamates or ddt. i have a subject which i think if of great importance to the american people. tonight i w
36、ant to discuss the importance of the television news medium to the american people. no nation depends more on the intelligent judgment of its citizens. no medium has a more profound influence over public opinion. nowhere in our system are there fewer checks on vast power. so, nowhere should there be
37、 more conscientious responsibility exercised than by the news media. the question is, “are we demanding enough of our television news presentations?” “and are the men of this medium demanding enough of themselves?”monday night a week ago, president nixon delivered the most important address of his a
38、dministration, one of the most important of our decade. his subject was vietnam. my hope, as his at that time, was to rally the american people to see the conflict through to a lasting and just peace in the pacific. for 32 minutes, he reasoned with a nation that has suffered almost a third of a mill
39、ion casualties in the longest war in its history.when the president completed his address - an address, incidentally, that he spent weeks in the preparation of - his words and policies were subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism. the audience of 70 million americans gathered to hear t
40、he president of the united states was inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility to what he had to say.it was obvious that their minds were made up in advance. those who recall the fumbling and g
41、roping that followed president johnsons dramatic disclosure of his intention not to seek another term have seen these men in a genuine state of nonpreparedness. this was not it.one commentator twice contradicted the presidents statement about the exchange of correspondence with ho chi minh. another
42、challenged the presidents abilities as a politician. a third asserted that the president was following a pentagon line. others, by the expressions on their faces, the tone of their questions, and the sarcasm of their responses, made clear their sharp disapproval.to guarantee in advance that the pres
43、idents plea for national unity would be challenged, one network trotted out averell harriman for the occasion. throughout the presidents address, he waited in the wings. when the president concluded, mr. harriman recited perfectly. he attacked the thieu government as unrepresentative; he criticized
44、the presidents speech for various deficiencies; he twice issued a call to the senate foreign relations committee to debate vietnam once again; he stated his belief that the vietcong or north vietnamese did not really want military take-over of south vietnam; and he told a little anecdote about a ver
45、y, very responsible fellow he had met in the north vietnamese delegation.all in all, mr. harrison offered a broad range of gratuitous advice challenging and contradicting the policies outlined by the president of the united states. where the president had issued a call for unity, mr. harriman was en
46、couraging the country not to listen to him.a word about mr. harriman. for 10 months he was americas chief negotiator at the paris peace talks - a period in which the united states swapped some of the greatest military concessions in the history of warfare for an enemy agreement on the shape of the b
47、argaining table. like coleridges ancient mariner, mr. harriman seems to be under some heavy compulsion to justify his failures to anyone who will listen. and the networks have shown themselves willing to give him all the air time he desires.now every american has a right to disagree with the preside
48、nt of the united states and to express publicly that disagreement. but the president of the united states has a right to communicate directly with the people who elected him, and the people of this country have the right to make up their own minds and form their own opinions about a presidential address without having a presidents words and thoughts characterized through the prejudices of hostile critics before they can even be digested.when winston churchill rallied public opinion to stay the course against hitlers germany, he didnt have
