Two of My Favorite Things
I can’t remember where I got this quote:
“This book, the Bible, has persecuted, even unto death the wisest and the best. This book stayed and stopped the onward movement of the human race. This book poisoned the fountains of learning and misdirected the energies of man.
“This book is the enemy of freedom, the support of slavery. This book sowed the seeds of hatred in families and nations, fed the flames of war, and impoverished the world. This book is the breastwork of kings and tyrants – the enslaver of women and children. This book has corrupted parliaments and courts. This book has made colleges and universities the teachers of error and the haters of science. This book has filled Christendom with hateful, cruel, ignorant and warring sects. This book taught men to kill their fellows for religion’s sake. This book founded the Inquisition, invented the instruments of torture, built the dungeons in which the good and loving languished, forged the chains that rusted in their flesh, erected the scaffolds whereon they died. This book piled faggots about the feet of the just. This book drove reason from the minds of millions and filled the asylums with the insane.
“This book has caused fathers and mothers to shed the blood of their babes. This book was the auction block on which the slave-mother stood when she was sold from her child. This book filled the sails of the slave-trader and made merchandise of human flesh. This book lighted the fires that burned “witches” and “wizards.” This book filled the darkness with ghouls and ghosts and the bodies of men and women with devils. This book polluted the souls of men with the infamous dogma of eternal pain. This book made credulity the greatest of virtues, and investigation the greatest of crimes. This book filled nations with hermits, monks, and nuns – with the pious and the useless. This book placed the ignorant and unclean saint above the philosopher and philanthropist. This book taught man to despise the joys of his life that he might be happier in another – to waste this world for the sake of the next.
“I attack [the Bible] because it is the enemy of human liberty – the greatest obstruction across the highway of human progress. Let me ask you one question: How can you be wicked enough to defend this book?”
— Robert Ingersoll
This one I got from here via Kottke:
Brian Eno
Eno’s First Law
Culture is everything we don’t have to do
We have to eat, but we didn’t have to invent Baked Alaskas and Beef Wellington. We have to clothe ourselves, but we didn’t have to invent platform shoes and polka-dot bikinis. We have to communicate, but we didn’t have to invent sonnets and sonatas. Everything we dobeyond simply keeping ourselves alivewe do because we like making and experiencing art and culture.
Eno’s Second Law
Science is the conversation about how the world is. Culture is the conversation about how else the world could be, and how else we could experience it.
Science wants to know what can be said about the world, what can be predicted about it. Art likes to see which other worlds are possible, to see how it would feel if it were this way instead of that way. As such art can give us the practice and agility to think and experience in new ways – preparing us for the new understandings of things that science supplies.
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15 Replies to “Two of My Favorite Things”
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Awesome. Great post.
I especially agree with this point… “This book taught man to despise the joys of his life that he might be happier in another.”
Wow! There’s a picker-upper for the morning. Personally I think the book is being used by the evils of unperfect men and women. if it weren’t the Bible then it would be something else.
When I read the Bible it fills me with simple hopes and teaches me that the greatest thing of all is love.
It sucks that people need to blame the vehicle instead of the drunk driver or the airplane instead of the terrorist.
I totally disagree. Literature is completely open to interpretation. If people choose to follow it that’s their choice, but it is most certainly not responsible for the evils of our world.
That would be the people making their own choices…
your assumption, phil, is of course that most people actually go ahead and make their own choices as opposed to simply following doctrine preached to them since as long as they can remember, which was preached to the preachers for as long as they have been around… the interpretation of which stemmed from (admittedly) one or one group of persons, usually whom existed very, very long ago. Usually in times that don’t come close to resembling ours, but the interpretations are the same, generation after generation.
regardless, kevin, we can not blame a piece of literature for the direction in which the world is going today. period. granted the religious were and still are rather righteous about their cause this is not what the bible is teaching. but as I said it is very open to interpretation…as with all literature. at least it wasn’t written in chinese or it would say a million different things…one could argue the same points about all religions, despite what they teach; war, hatred, and evil are all still inevitable. This says something about human nature, not that of our historical texts…
If it is the Bible that has caused all these things, “sowed the seeds of hatred in families and nations, fed the flames of war, and impoverished the world” then why is it that evil and hatred and war all predate the mass production of the Printed word. The ancient world that had no contact with Christianity was full of “hateful, cruel, ignorant and warring sects.” The Bible in and of itself is not responsible for the “stayed and stopped onward movement of the human race.” It is the narrow minded people who refuse to accept that loving humanity in spite of its utter wretchedness is what the Bible calls all its followers to do. It is the hypocrisy of Modern Christianity that is the enemy of freedom, the support of slavery not a book.
the book is being used by the evils of unperfect men and women. if it weren’t the Bible then it would be something else.
Exactly. The problem are imperfect men and women. If people were perfect it wouldn’t matter how evil the Bible is. Similarly Fascism is not the problem, it’s the imperfect people who follow it…
That would be the people making their own choices…
Exactly. Guns don’t kill people, people do.
If they want to burn people at the stake for suggesting the earth is round, that’s their choice.
but as I said it is very open to interpretation…as with all literature.
Hmm. So how would you interpret this:
So Saddam was a devout follower of the Bible, who woulda thunk of it!
close your tags, george!<br /
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[beastie boys] Droppin’ science like Galileo dropped an orange. [/beastie boys]
I’m pretty split on the issue of the Bible’s (and thus, Christianity’s) effect on history. Being that, as previously mentioned, the Bible is open to interpretation, we often see dueling interpretations claiming that they are the ‘only’ correct interpretation. Thus, they feel justified in using their (usually literal) interpretation of the Bible to their own ends. It’s a terrible thing, of course.
However, you do have to give Christianity credit for keeping culture alive during the dark ages and for teaching morality to idiots.
So, kyle? Ill take it that Christianity taught you morality?
Snicker… Snicker. 😉
“keeping society alive in the dark ages”
What the hell do you think think those centuries are called that for? The “dark” part of it refers to the church’s iron grip on every facet of the follower’s life… keeping art from being produced that wasn’t church-related for hundreds of years. The Renaissance was the re-birth of the human spirit, and for the first time in centuries art was being produced that was not solely meant as a means to the church’s ends.
Can you blame the Bible for existing, and that people have interpreted it in malicious ways? Perhaps not, as some have argued. But to quote Eddie Izzard: “Guns don’t kill people, people do. No, but I think the gun helps. Walking around saying ‘Bang! Rat-a-tat-tat! Boom’ wouldn’t exactly have the same effect.” The bible itself is perhaps (again, as some have argued) not to blame, but its non-existence could quite possibly have helped shed much less blood and prevented much suffering around the world throughout the course of history. The existence of a written, holy scripture gives a certain kind of person the scapegoat they need to abuse and interpret in violent ways. And as we’ve mostly seen, when you write your own holy scripture, you can perhaps goad a few people into following you, but ultimately, the death toll is an order of magnitude smaller than that of the cult of Christianity.
Are there good Christians? Of course. The quote questions the existence of a book, not the belief system of a populace. Could Christianity exist without the Bible? What would it be like?
However, you do have to give Christianity credit for keeping culture alive during the dark ages and for teaching morality to idiots.
Even if that were so, and I am not at all sure it is, isn’t the obvious conclusion that we ought to move on? Yes, surgeons used to save lives by sawing people’s limbs off, but now we know better, right?
If you look at the history of the Roman Empire, at its peak it was actually a highly secular society. Remember, Roman Republicanism means the rule of law above all else, and even the Emperor had to obey the law. This was a huge advance over anything else at the time and the foundation of what we now know as democracy.
The Roman Empire went into a decline as Christianity set in and replaced Republicanism and secular society. The barbarians that destroyed the Empire based their rule upon the Divine Right of Kings, which says the King can do whatever he wants because God said so. In other words the Dark Ages was brought about and sustained by Christianity.
So, far from "preserving culture", Christianity had in fact set back Western Civilization back for 500 years. It was only later during the Renaissance and the Age of Reason that the West re-discovered the rule of law that ultimately lead to the modern Western democracies.
Religion and the Bible are used too often as a crutch to give righteuousness to messed up situations. For example slogans such as “God Bless America” are being mass produced on t-shirts, posters, bumper stickers, etc. making it seem okay that our soldiers are massacering Iraquis, becuase it is in “God’s name.” The media exploits our “puritain” background by creating religious propaganda that most of this society will be greatly influenced by. The words of the Bible only fuel the fire of a media based society.