Thomas Ray

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Jesus Christ the Righteous. I know that Jesus seems to be a "generic" hero, but you might want to read what some of the world's greatest minds have to say about him. He really is my number one hero:

"I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history." H.G. Wells, British author (1866-1946)

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"A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act." Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political leader (1869-1948)

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"Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God must be a rebel as well as a king." G.K. Chesterton, English critic and author (1874-1936)

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"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene....No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life." Albert Einstein, physicist and atheist (1879-1955)

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"Jesus Christ is to me the outstanding personality of all time, all history, both as Son of God and as Son of Man. Everything he ever said or did has value for us today and that is something you can say of no other man, dead or alive. There is no easy middle ground to stroll upon. You either accept Jesus or reject him." Sholem Asch, Jewish author (1880-1957)

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"After the fall of so many gods in this century, this person, broken at the hands of his opponents and constantly betrayed through the ages by his adherents, is obviously still for innumerable people the most moving figure in the long history of mankind." Hans Kng, German theologian (born 1928)

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"Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and goodness." Martin Luther King Jr., American civil rights leader (1929-68)

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"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. C.S. Lewis, British author (1898-1963)

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Additionally, I might add that other heroes include people that I have met along the way who each have given me new ways of looking at life and others.

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