> --- In [email protected], off_world_beings <no_reply@> > wrote: > > Gibson probably also thinks the Founding Fathers of America were > > Christians, when in fact most of them were FreeMasons intent on > > establishing the Novus Ordo Seclorum (see your dollar notes ) "New > > Secular Order"
--- In [email protected], "Rory Goff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Quick note -- Novus Ordo Seclorum translates as "New" (Novus) "Order" > (Ordo) "of the Ages, Generations or Centuries" (Seclorum or more > fully Saeculorum being the genitive or possessive plural of > Saeculum, "Age" or "Century" (viz. the French cognate siecle, as in > fin-de-siecle, "end of the century"). "Secular" -- from the adjective > Saecularis, "worldly, secular, of the age" -- would be a rather > egregious mistranslation of Seclorum, the sort of "scholarship" Dan > Brown's supposedly-learned characters frequently demonstrate, to the > amusement of anyone who actually stayed awake through a decent > humanities course in college, or were fortunate enough to take Latin > in high school before it was phased out :-) > > --- In [email protected], off_world_beings <no_reply@> > wrote: > that the Freemasons and Sir Francis Bacon (councillor > > to Queen Elizabeth I, and called the "Grandfather of Modern > > Science" ) had espoused. Actually, a surprising number of the better-educated Puritan leaders were alchemists, mystical scientists, followers of John Dee (a far more interesting character than Francis Bacon, IMO) -- John Winthrop, for example (as evinced by his fascinating library, some of the books of which still contain John Dee's signature and Monas Hieroglyphica), and Winthrop's sons and grandsons, and Richard Starkey, and Gershom Bulkeley, among others. It's true that they believed that Salvation only came through Christ, and they (the Puritans especially) did their best to "save" as many Indians as possible, but that was hardly unique to their sect. Many of these men --like the famed Puritan missionary John Eliot -- loved and respected Indians, and tried hard to faciliate their acquisition of European living standards, which many Indians themselves were more than willing to accept. Most Indians were great respecters of what we might call "mana" -- the spiritual power in a well-made object, and there is no denying that the Europeans had better technology and thus objects with better "mana". When the tensions with the Indians escalated in the 1690s and the Indians began preparations for the disastrous King Phillip's War, the highly influential Indian Supervisor Daniel Gookin tried very hard to defuse the situation, but hotter heads prevailed, and Gookin became most unpopular. > > And the "Pilgrims" at Plymouth Rock he probably thinks were freedom > > seekers running from English oppression, when in fact, by their own > > philosphy and actions, were repressive, hateful, fundamentalist > > christians, who murdered Indians who did not convert, Actually, as I understand it, it's estimated that up to 90% of the Indians in New England had already died off before the Pilgrims showed up in 1620: In part from the Tarrantine Wars, waged by an extemely fierce tribe of that name spurred on by the French in Canada, and in part through the ravages of disease sown unawares by the European traders and fishermen who had been visiting America for decades if not centuries before the Pilgrims' arrival. The Indians had no natural immunities to these "new" diseases, and by 1620 there were almost no survivors along the Massachusetts coast. Squanto was the last and only survivor of his tribe. He already spoke English because of his tribe's contacts with these pre-Pilgrim traders. >and who left > > England because Queen Elizabeth Queen Elizabeth had died in 1603, and the Pilgrims didn't leave for Amsterdam and Leyden until 1607 and 1608, well into the reign of King James. >Freemason council Freemasonry wasn't officially acknowledged by the crown until the formation of the First Grand Lodge in 1717-- which is not to say that unofficial, proto-Masonic bodies didn't exist. I am fond of Robinson's "Born in Blood" for a credible hypothesis of the relationship between the exiled Templars in Scotland, 14th century, and the earliest Scots masons of the following century. >were against > > religious repression, Both Elizabeth and King James were very much into religious repression, as both used religion to support the State. AFAIK neither ruler hesitated to declare "wrong beliefs" as treason meriting death by public dismemberment etc. >and didn't let the "Puritans" practice their > > sectarian fundamentalist religion in the towns and villages of > Devon > > and Cornwall, where, if you were "not with them, you were with the > > Devil". Mostly because rulers like Queen Elizabeth and King James considered themselves to be God's agents, if not microcosmic Gods (remember "the Divine right of Kings"?), and to rebel against their state-sponsored religion was to invite a swift (or worse, a not-so-swift) and unpleasant death. :-) *L*L*L*
