MY RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
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INFIDELS
"I
have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself
from Christian assemblies."
[Benjamin Franklin, in _Toward The Mystery_]
I
have examined all the known superstitions of the Word, and I do not find in
our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are
all alike, founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women
and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured,
fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one
half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and
error all over the world ... The clergy converted the simple teachings of
Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind ... to filch wealth and power to
themselves. [They], in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.
Thomas Jefferson
"There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace
as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally
adopted."
"What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of
the good and for the Christian church [...]a lie out of necessity, a useful
lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept
them. --Martin Luther cited by his secretary, in a letter in Max Lenz,
ed., Briefwechsel Landgraf Phillips des Grossmüthigen von Hessen mit Bucer,
vol.I."
Long Live Queen James-- While riding through the bustling streets of London
from 1603 to 1621, one was liable to hear the shout "Long live Queen James!"
King James I of England and VI of Scotland was so open about his homosexual
love affairs that an epigram had been circulated which roused much mirth
and nodding of the heads: Rex fuit Elizabeth: nunc est regina Jacobus—"Elizabeth
was King: now James is Queen."
"There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace
as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally
adopted."
"What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of
the good and for the Christian church [...]a lie out of necessity, a useful
lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept
them. --Martin Luther cited by his secretary, in a letter in Max Lenz,
ed., Briefwechsel Landgraf Phillips des Grossmüthigen von Hessen mit Bucer,
vol.I."
Long Live Queen James-- While riding through the bustling streets of London
from 1603 to 1621, one was liable to hear the shout "Long live Queen James!"
King James I of England and VI of Scotland was so open about his homosexual
love affairs that an epigram had been circulated which roused much mirth
and nodding of the heads: Rex fuit Elizabeth: nunc est regina Jacobus—"Elizabeth
was King: now James is Queen."
Education, The Churches and. J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopaedia
The legend that Christianity "gave the world schools," which is still
repeated even by apologists who consider themselves above the popular
class, is, like similar claims in regard to slavery, philanthropy, purity,
etc., the exact opposite of the historical facts as they are recorded
in every manual of the history of education published since the middle
of the last century. Indeed, the Roman system of free education had been
described repeatedly since the classical revival of the fifteenth century,
and even in Christian circles every biography of Augustine of Hippo had
described how he found free pagan schools, primary and secondary, even
in the smaller towns of Africa. In earlier civilizations a good deal of
schooling had been provided for boys (occasionally girls) of the middle
class, as we find in Egyptian and Babylonian remains, but they all, including
Greece, regarded the education of the workers as superfluous. Under the
influence of the Stoic-Epicureans, long before bishops had the least influence,
the Roman Emperors created a system of schools, maintained by the municipalities,
for all freeborn children. By the fourth century the "ladder of education"
(free to all) stretched, in all parts of the Empire, from the simple primary
school, often in the open air, through secondary schools to a sort of
university at Rome (and in a few other cities). See the details in Laurie's
Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education (1900) or any modern manual.
These schools, in which the text-books were, naturally, Pagan literature,
were offensive and dangerous to the Church, and the fact that in so intellectually
busy a city as Alexandria the Christians opened a few small schools rather
reminds us of the fable of the fly on the chariot - wheel when we are
asked to regard this as the beginning of education. The Fathers
were, in fact, overwhelmingly opposed to education and expressed a contempt
for profane knowledge. "After Jesus Christ," said Tertullian, "all curiosity
is superfluous."
Education, The Churches and. J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopaedia The legend that Christianity "gave the world schools," which is still repeated even by apologists who consider themselves above the popular class, is, like similar claims in regard to slavery, philanthropy, purity, etc., the exact opposite of the historical facts as they are recorded in every manual of the history of education published since the middle of the last century. Indeed, the Roman system of free education had been described repeatedly since the classical revival of the fifteenth century, and even in Christian circles every biography of Augustine of Hippo had described how he found free pagan schools, primary and secondary, even in the smaller towns of Africa. In earlier civilizations a good deal of schooling had been provided for boys (occasionally girls) of the middle class, as we find in Egyptian and Babylonian remains, but they all, including Greece, regarded the education of the workers as superfluous. Under the influence of the Stoic-Epicureans, long before bishops had the least influence, the Roman Emperors created a system of schools, maintained by the municipalities, for all freeborn children. By the fourth century the "ladder of education" (free to all) stretched, in all parts of the Empire, from the simple primary school, often in the open air, through secondary schools to a sort of university at Rome (and in a few other cities). See the details in Laurie's Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education (1900) or any modern manual. These schools, in which the text-books were, naturally, Pagan literature, were offensive and dangerous to the Church, and the fact that in so intellectually busy a city as Alexandria the Christians opened a few small schools rather reminds us of the fable of the fly on the chariot - wheel when we are asked to regard this as the beginning of education. The Fathers were, in fact, overwhelmingly opposed to education and expressed a contempt for profane knowledge. "After Jesus Christ," said Tertullian, "all curiosity is superfluous."
The next wave of religious Rationalism occurred in Germany under the
influence of Hegel, who held that a religious creed is a halfway house
on the road to a mature philosophy, the product of a reason that is
still under the sway of feeling and imagination. This idea was taken
up and applied with learning and acuteness to the origins of Christianity
by David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74), who published in 1835, at the
age of 27, a remarkable and influential three-volume work, Das Leben
Jesu (The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, 1846). Relying largely
on internal inconsistencies in the Synoptic Gospels, Strauss undertook
to prove these books to be unacceptable as revelation and unsatisfactory
as history. He then sought to show how an imaginative people innocent
of either history or science, convinced that a Messiah would appear,
and deeply moved by a unique moral genius, inevitably wove myths about
his birth and death, his miracles, and his divine communings. (see also
Index: Hegelianism)
If a miracle is by definition utterly improbable, then it is far more
probable that our senses have deceived us or that those whose testimony
leads us to believe the miracle either deceived us or were deceived
themselves by other witnesses or by their senses. David Hume
When we were weaned from our mother's tit most of us were forced to
suckle from a theological pacifier. drsancho
You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe
in the Koran from the same accident, and each call the other infidel.
Thomas Paine.
I believe that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks
the mind of a child cannot be a true system. Thomas Paine
Theologians
are not competent to interpret the doctrines contained in the prophetically
revealed law. For this, reason must be employed.-Averroes-
With 'Pascal's wager' he uses probabilistic and mathematical arguments
but his main conclusion is that If God does not exist, one will lose
nothing by believing in him, while if he does exist, one will lose everything
by not believing. ...we are compelled to gamble... -Pascal, 17th century-
"In many respects, says Montaigne [1533 - 1592], moral as well as physical,
the cannibals live more sensibly than we do....they have a government
of sorts, but not one that systematically robs and starves the helpless;
they may eat their enemies, but do not burn them alive or torture them
to death over doctrinal trivia.... Twenty years ago, in attending the
Montreal Expo, I dropped in to the Canadian Indian exhibit, where the
walls were covered with printed statements expressing the exhibitors'
opinion of their white visitors. I remember nothing of the actual wording,
but what was said in effect was: You conquered us, not fairly in battle
but by infecting us with your foul diseases; you stole our land and
shut us up into open-air cages; you trapped the animals and burnt the
forests we depended on for food and shelter; worst of all, you robbed
us of our Great Spirit and put your own horrible scarecrow in its place."
-Northrop Frye 1912 - 1991.-
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." Shaw
Emerson's "Address at Divinity College," Harvard University, in 1838
was another challenge, this time directed against a lifeless Christian
tradition, especially Unitarianism as he had known it. He dismissed
religious institutions and the divinity of Jesus as failures in man's
attempt to encounter deity directly through the moral principle or through
an intuited sentiment of virtue. This address alienated many, left him
with few opportunities to preach, and resulted in his being ostracized
by Harvard for many years.-Ralph Waldo Emerson-
The next wave of religious Rationalism occurred in Germany under the
influence of Hegel, who held that a religious creed is a halfway house
on the road to a mature philosophy, the product of a reason that is
still under the sway of feeling and imagination. This idea was taken
up and applied with learning and acuteness to the origins of Christianity
by David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74), who published in 1835, at the
age of 27, a remarkable and influential three-volume work, Das Leben
Jesu (The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, 1846). Relying largely
on internal inconsistencies in the Synoptic Gospels, Strauss undertook
to prove these books to be unacceptable as revelation and unsatisfactory
as history. He then sought to show how an imaginative people innocent
of either history or science, convinced that a Messiah would appear,
and deeply moved by a unique moral genius, inevitably wove myths about
his birth and death, his miracles, and his divine communings. (see also
Index: Hegelianism)
If a miracle is by definition utterly improbable, then it is far more
probable that our senses have deceived us or that those whose testimony
leads us to believe the miracle either deceived us or were deceived
themselves by other witnesses or by their senses. David Hume
When we were weaned from our mother's tit most of us were forced to
suckle from a theological pacifier. drsancho
You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe
in the Koran from the same accident, and each call the other infidel.
Thomas Paine.
I believe that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks
the mind of a child cannot be a true system. Thomas Paine
Theologians
are not competent to interpret the doctrines contained in the prophetically
revealed law. For this, reason must be employed.-Averroes-
With 'Pascal's wager' he uses probabilistic and mathematical arguments
but his main conclusion is that If God does not exist, one will lose
nothing by believing in him, while if he does exist, one will lose everything
by not believing. ...we are compelled to gamble... -Pascal, 17th century-
"In many respects, says Montaigne [1533 - 1592], moral as well as physical,
the cannibals live more sensibly than we do....they have a government
of sorts, but not one that systematically robs and starves the helpless;
they may eat their enemies, but do not burn them alive or torture them
to death over doctrinal trivia.... Twenty years ago, in attending the
Montreal Expo, I dropped in to the Canadian Indian exhibit, where the
walls were covered with printed statements expressing the exhibitors'
opinion of their white visitors. I remember nothing of the actual wording,
but what was said in effect was: You conquered us, not fairly in battle
but by infecting us with your foul diseases; you stole our land and
shut us up into open-air cages; you trapped the animals and burnt the
forests we depended on for food and shelter; worst of all, you robbed
us of our Great Spirit and put your own horrible scarecrow in its place."
-Northrop Frye 1912 - 1991.-
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." Shaw
Emerson's "Address at Divinity College," Harvard University, in 1838
was another challenge, this time directed against a lifeless Christian
tradition, especially Unitarianism as he had known it. He dismissed
religious institutions and the divinity of Jesus as failures in man's
attempt to encounter deity directly through the moral principle or through
an intuited sentiment of virtue. This address alienated many, left him
with few opportunities to preach, and resulted in his being ostracized
by Harvard for many years.-Ralph Waldo Emerson-
The next wave of religious Rationalism occurred in Germany under the
influence of Hegel, who held that a religious creed is a halfway house
on the road to a mature philosophy, the product of a reason that is
still under the sway of feeling and imagination. This idea was taken
up and applied with learning and acuteness to the origins of Christianity
by David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74), who published in 1835, at the
age of 27, a remarkable and influential three-volume work, Das Leben
Jesu (The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, 1846). Relying largely
on internal inconsistencies in the Synoptic Gospels, Strauss undertook
to prove these books to be unacceptable as revelation and unsatisfactory
as history. He then sought to show how an imaginative people innocent
of either history or science, convinced that a Messiah would appear,
and deeply moved by a unique moral genius, inevitably wove myths about
his birth and death, his miracles, and his divine communings. (see also
Index: Hegelianism)
If a miracle is by definition utterly improbable, then it is far more
probable that our senses have deceived us or that those whose testimony
leads us to believe the miracle either deceived us or were deceived
themselves by other witnesses or by their senses. David Hume
When we were weaned from our mother's tit most of us were forced to
suckle from a theological pacifier. drsancho
You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe
in the Koran from the same accident, and each call the other infidel.
Thomas Paine.
I believe that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks
the mind of a child cannot be a true system. Thomas Paine Theologians
are not competent to interpret the doctrines contained in the prophetically
revealed law. For this, reason must be employed.-Averroes-
With 'Pascal's wager' he uses probabilistic and mathematical arguments
but his main conclusion is that If God does not exist, one will lose
nothing by believing in him, while if he does exist, one will lose everything
by not believing. ...we are compelled to gamble... -Pascal, 17th century-
"In many respects, says Montaigne [1533 - 1592], moral as well as physical,
the cannibals live more sensibly than we do....they have a government
of sorts, but not one that systematically robs and starves the helpless;
they may eat their enemies, but do not burn them alive or torture them
to death over doctrinal trivia.... Twenty years ago, in attending the
Montreal Expo, I dropped in to the Canadian Indian exhibit, where the
walls were covered with printed statements expressing the exhibitors'
opinion of their white visitors. I remember nothing of the actual wording,
but what was said in effect was: You conquered us, not fairly in battle
but by infecting us with your foul diseases; you stole our land and
shut us up into open-air cages; you trapped the animals and burnt the
forests we depended on for food and shelter; worst of all, you robbed
us of our Great Spirit and put your own horrible scarecrow in its place."
-Northrop Frye 1912 - 1991.-
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." Shaw
Emerson's "Address at Divinity College," Harvard University, in 1838
was another challenge, this time directed against a lifeless Christian
tradition, especially Unitarianism as he had known it. He dismissed
religious institutions and the divinity of Jesus as failures in man's
attempt to encounter deity directly through the moral principle or through
an intuited sentiment of virtue. This address alienated many, left him
with few opportunities to preach, and resulted in his being ostracized
by Harvard for many years.-Ralph Waldo Emerson-
One of the earliest women scientists we have documentary evidence for,
Hypatia was the daughter of Theon, a mathematician and astronomer at
the Museum in Alexandria. Her refusal to convert to Christianity resulted
in her murder. Fanatical monks took it upon themselves to remove her.
She died violently. She was dragged to her death by a Christian mob
who pulled her from her classroom into the streets where they peeled
her to death with oyster shells. -She wrote that- All formal dogmatic
religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting
persons as final. Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly
is better than not to think at all. To teach superstitions as truth
is a most terrible thing. -Hypatia of Alexandria Mathematics/Philosophy
b. Egypt 370-415-
Sigmund Freud, where he writes that the man named Moses was not Jewish
but a monotheistic black Egyptian. In addition Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
drew on Darwinian themes when he discussed religion in terms of the
"primal horde." According to Freud, belief in God constitutes a regression
to a childlike state in which helpless man projects upon nature the
image of a comforting father-figure.
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people." –Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
Valla, Lorenzo, Latin LAURENTIUS VALLENSIS (b. 1407, Rome, Papal States
[Italy]--d. Aug. 1, 1457, Rome), Italian humanist, philosopher, and
literary critic who attacked medieval traditions and anticipated views
of the Protestant reformers.
Valla, Lorenzo, Latin LAURENTIUS VALLENSIS (b. 1407, Rome, Papal States
[Italy]--d. Aug. 1, 1457, Rome), Italian humanist, philosopher, and
literary critic who attacked medieval traditions and anticipated views
of the Protestant reformers.
Valla, Lorenzo, Latin LAURENTIUS VALLENSIS (b. 1407, Rome, Papal States
[Italy]--d. Aug. 1, 1457, Rome), Italian humanist, philosopher, and
literary critic who attacked medieval traditions and anticipated views
of the Protestant reformers.
His Declamatio (Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine), written in 1440, attacked the crude Latin of its anonymous author and from that observation argued that the document could not possibly have dated from the time of Constantine. Valla reduced Aristotle's nine "categories" to three (substance, quality, and action, which corresponded to noun, adjective, and verb) and denounced as barbarisms a number of the technical terms of scholastic philosophy, such as "entity" and "quiddity."
Meanwhile, Valla had become embroiled in another controversy, theological this time, over his refusal to believe that the Apostles' Creed had been composed by the Twelve Apostles. As a result, he was denounced by the clergy and investigated by the Inquisition, which found him heretical on eight counts, including his defense of Epicurus and his criticisms of Aristotle's categories. Only Alfonso's personal intervention saved him from the stake. Predictably, Valla was attacked for his disrespect to St. Jerome, the presumed author of the Latin translation of the Bible; during the Counter-Reformation the Adnotationes were to be placed on the Index, the Roman Catholic church's list of condemned books.
In 1457 he was invited to deliver an encomium of St. Thomas Aquinas to an audience of Dominicans in the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva at Rome, to celebrate the saint's anniversary. Valla, however, delivered an antiencomium, a critique of St. Thomas' style and his interest in logic that advocated a return to the theology of the Fathers of the church.
Desiderius Erasmus Introduction Born in Rotterdam in 1469, Desiderius
Erasmus was the greatest European scholar of the 16th century. Using
the philological methods pioneered by Italian humanists, he helped
lay the groundwork for the historical-critical study of the past,
especially in his studies of the Greek New Testament and the Church
Fathers. Finally, his independent stance in an age of fierce confessional
controversy--rejecting both Luther's doctrine of predestination and
the powers that were claimed for the papacy--made him a target of
suspicion for loyal partisans on both sides and a beacon for those
who valued liberty more than orthodoxy.
Erasmus' monastic superiors became "barbarians" for him by discouraging his classical studies. "All sound learning is secular learning."
Servetus felt he could restore the church by separ ating
it FROM THE STATE and by using only those theological formulations
that could be proved from Scripture and the pre-Constantinian fathers.
When some of Servetus' letters to Calvin fell into the hands of
Guillaume de Trie, a former citizen of Lyon, he exposed Servetus
to the inquisitor general at Lyon. Servetus and his printers were
seized. During the trial, however, Servetus escaped, and the Catholic
authorities had to be content with burning him in effigy. He quixotically
appeared in Geneva and was recognized, arrested, and tried for heresy
from Aug. 14 to Oct. 25, 1553. Calvin played a prominent part in
the trial and pressed for execution, although by beheading rather
than by fire. Despite his intense biblicism and his wholly Christocentric
view of the universe, Servetus was found guilty of heresy, mainly
on his views of the Trinity and Baptism. He was burned alive at
Champel on October 27. His execution produced a Protestant controversy
on imposing the death penalty for heresy, drew severe criticism
upon John Calvin, and influenced Laelius Socinus, a founder of modern
unitarian views.
Theodicy- An attempt to explain or defend the benevolence of god
despite the presence of evil in the world.
According to lore, in the middle of this century, the British biologist,
J. B. S. Haldane, when asked by a group of theologians what one
could glean about the Creator from a study of His creation, is said
to have replied, "an inordinate fondness for beetles."
As for the survival of the Bible, it isn't nearly as old as some
holy books. Sections of the Zoroastrian Avesta are older than even
the oldest parts of the Old Testament and so are many of the Hindu
Vedas. To argue that the length of time a religion has survived
is somehow an indicator of its truth, would make many religions
"true religions." The history of religion is that they arise out
of political and social circumstances of the times, thrive, decline,
and die. There is no reason to believe that the same will not happen
to Christianity and other ancient religions that have survived for
centuries. Information is religion's greatest enemy, and in an age
when information is just a few keyboard strokes away from anyone
with a computer, this is going to pose a greater threat to Christianity
than anything it has yet "survived."
One of Frank Zappa's sites: My best advice to anyone who wants to
raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far
away from a church as you can.
Servetus felt he could restore the church by separ ating
it FROM THE STATE and by using only those theological formulations
that could be proved from Scripture and the pre-Constantinian fathers.
When some of Servetus' letters to Calvin fell into the hands of
Guillaume de Trie, a former citizen of Lyon, he exposed Servetus
to the inquisitor general at Lyon. Servetus and his printers were
seized. During the trial, however, Servetus escaped, and the Catholic
authorities had to be content with burning him in effigy. He quixotically
appeared in Geneva and was recognized, arrested, and tried for heresy
from Aug. 14 to Oct. 25, 1553. Calvin played a prominent part in
the trial and pressed for execution, although by beheading rather
than by fire. Despite his intense biblicism and his wholly Christocentric
view of the universe, Servetus was found guilty of heresy, mainly
on his views of the Trinity and Baptism. He was burned alive at
Champel on October 27. His execution produced a Protestant controversy
on imposing the death penalty for heresy, drew severe criticism
upon John Calvin, and influenced Laelius Socinus, a founder of modern
unitarian views.
Theodicy- An attempt to explain or defend the benevolence of god
despite the presence of evil in the world.
According to lore, in the middle of this century, the British biologist,
J. B. S. Haldane, when asked by a group of theologians what one
could glean about the Creator from a study of His creation, is said
to have replied, "an inordinate fondness for beetles."
As for the survival of the Bible, it isn't nearly as old as some
holy books. Sections of the Zoroastrian Avesta are older than even
the oldest parts of the Old Testament and so are many of the Hindu
Vedas. To argue that the length of time a religion has survived
is somehow an indicator of its truth, would make many religions
"true religions." The history of religion is that they arise out
of political and social circumstances of the times, thrive, decline,
and die. There is no reason to believe that the same will not happen
to Christianity and other ancient religions that have survived for
centuries. Information is religion's greatest enemy, and in an age
when information is just a few keyboard strokes away from anyone
with a computer, this is going to pose a greater threat to Christianity
than anything it has yet "survived."
One of Frank Zappa's sites: My best advice to anyone who wants to
raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far
away from a church as you can.
* * * Children are naive -- they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're asking for trouble.
* * * The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just keep your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions.
"The major contribution of Protestant thought to the knowledge of
mankind is its massive proof that God is a bore." [H.L. Mencken]
drsancho@hotmail.com
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