Freedom of religion

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"

• ⁠Treaty of Tripoli

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."

• ⁠James Madison

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

• ⁠Thomas Jefferson

"Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?"

-John Adams

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

• ⁠Thomas Jefferson

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

• ⁠John Adams

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."

• ⁠Thomas Jefferson

"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

• ⁠James Madison

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."

• ⁠James Madison

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."

• ⁠Thomas Paine

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

• ⁠Thomas Paine

"There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."

• ⁠Thomas Jefferson

Comments

Manet and Degas

Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special. In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

The case for Harris

Motley Kamuka Blog endorses Kamala Harris. In general, Trump just wants to lower taxes on the rich, and do nothing, sell whatever influence he can to line his pockets. Apparently the emoluments clause in the constitution has no teeth. Harris has a set of ideas about policy that are fairly middle of the road. In most countries she's would be seen as a centrist. Spin about her radical agendas are exaggerated. I'm not sure how he got past " grab them by the pussy ", but he did and here we are. Women: Obviously the idea of giving women pregnancy tests at the borders of the state, and then if they come back and don't have a baby, they go to jail, isn't really what most women want. Pick Harris. I understand if you think abortion is murder, maybe you've been told that by the Catholic church, which has the same ideal of Buddhism that you don't kill--so follow your religion for yourself. Not everyone is Christian or Buddhist or even has a religion. Women are ...

Gravity's Rainbow Notes Franz Pokler

From pp 397-433: Franz Pokler , a German rocket scientist. He is marginally associated with early attempts to develop rockets in the 1920's. During the war, Weissmann controls Pokler, giving him routine assignments and keeping him in line by allowing him yearly visits from a girl who he says is Pokler's daughter. The girl spends the rest of the year in a concentration camp, and Weissmann's implied threat is that she will be killed if Pokler fails to cooperate with Weissmann's scheme. Weissmann's purpose is to use Pokler to make one small part for the A4 rocket. In the end, having performed his task, Pokler is released; Slothrop meets him living quietly in the ruins of a children's village after the end of the war. His daughter also survives. Wiki notes on the Franz Pokler section 397-433 Abstract of "Franz Pökler's Anti-Story: Narrative and Self in Gravity's Rainbow" by Robert L. McLaughlin. (access the article here from Pynchon Notes ) Gra...

Motley Kamuka

Search This Blog