----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Pensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2003 4:11 PM Subject: Fwd: Re: christian dreams of murder...
> I sent this during the outage and havent seen it appear yet. > > Doug > > ------- Forwarded message ------- > From: Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: christian dreams of murder... > Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 11:31:52 -0800 > > Dan Minette wrote: > > > I said: > > > >>> Sufficiently ambiguous. Evolution is my creator. > > > >> First, that wasn't Jefferson's idea. The idea of the enlightenment did > >> not include the idea of human rights being a meme that evolved because > >> it > >> worked. > > > Human rights didn't create me, the biological process called evolution > created me. How could a meme create a biological being and why would > you assume that I would think such a stupid thing. The word creator is > sufficiently ambiguous to encompass any number of ideologies, religious > or not. That's what I meant. I was evaluating this in terms of what you have said earlier is that things like human rights, morality, etc. comes from evolution. In other words, I was taking what you wrote in the context of your earlier writings. The problem that exists with this analysis is that, the writings of the Enlightenment are very clear in terms of the limits of reason. "The Critique of Pure Reason is a very good example of this. In terms of what I've said earlier, one does not need to be Christian in order to accept this on faith, but one does need faith. I'll agree that faith in the Transcendental should be sufficient, but the idea of a deduction of morality through pure reason was not part of the Enlightenment. Self evident truths are not proven through references to science, they are accepted as true because they are true. > -- > Doug > > Thomas Jefferson To John Adams, 1813 > > "It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in > the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that > the one is not three, and the three are not one . . . But this constitutes > the craft, the power and the profit of the priests. Sweep away their > gossamer fabrics of factitious religion, and they would catch no more > flies. We should all then, like the Quakers, live without an order of > priests, moralize for ourselves, follow the oracle of conscience, and say > nothing about what no man can understand, nor therefore believe" But, you have to take this in context. In responding to this, I'll be quoting from and referencing "Sworn on the Alter of God, A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson." He argues against Trinitarian theology. In it, we find the claim that Jefferson was influence by "Priestley's "History of the Corruption of Christianity", published in 1782. The above passage seems to clearly flow from Priestley's argument that the trinity is an unsound post biblical idea. Jefferson didn't seek to overturn Christianity., Rather, he wanted to rescue it from people whom he thought twisted it. He wrote a 46 page thesis on the true teachings of Jesus. He felt that he could do this through reason alone, without any of the techniques now used to examine ancient literature. He, indeed, had a problem with organized religion. But, he was a man of faith; as all who were part of the enlightenment were. He was not very interested in dogmatic squabbles, but thought proper action was the proper understanding of religion. Quoting from the book with quotes of Jefferson in quotes" <quote "Reading, reflection, and time have convinced me that the interests of society requires the observation of those more precepts only in which all religions agree." In a long footnote that he ultimately did not include in the letter, he spelled out the grounds of agreement: "all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, bear false witness, &c.," and these prohibitions every society required. What society did not require, however, was uniformity with respect to "vestments, ceremonies, physical opinions, and metaphysical speculations totally unconnected with morality....Likewise we divide over whether Christians "are to be initiated by simple aspersion, by immersion, or without water; whether [their] priests must be robed in white, in black, or not robed at all." The time has come, Jefferson wearily concluded, for all these "unimportant" and ""mischievous" questions "to the sleep of death, never to be awakened from it." <end quote> Jefferson was a very complex man. He clearly believed in God, and the reference to self evident _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
