17 MAR 2013 by ideonexus

 Science Threatened Monarchical Power

Following the death of Christ and the preaching by his disciples, the promised prospect of salvation for all believers raised the Christian priest¬ hood to unprecedentedly powerful popularity. The combined religious and martial emperorship found its authoritarianly formulated credo (meaning "I believe") threatened by the B.C. Greek scientists' ever-unorthodox thinking and discovering. "Science," as Sir James Jeans said two millennia later, "is the earnest attempt to set in order the facts of...
  1  notes

Thus emperors sought to destroy learning and evidence-based reasoning.

16 DEC 2011 by ideonexus

 Mother Teresa as Campaigner

Mother Teresa has a theory of poverty, which is also a theory of submission and gratitude. She has also a theory of power, which derives from St Paul's neglected words about 'the powers that be', which 'are ordained of God'. She is, finally, the emissary of a very determined and very politicized papacy. Her world travels are not the wanderings of a pilgrim but a campaign which accords with the requirements of power. Mother Teresa has a theory of morality too. It is not a difficult theory to c...
Folksonomies: religion scripture
Folksonomies: religion scripture
  1  notes

Hitchens outlines his perspective on the future saint.

17 JUN 2011 by ideonexus

 Jesus Used Political Language

Is there anything, for example, more dexterous than the manner in which he treated the subject of the woman taken in adultery? (St. John, c. viii.) The Jews having asked if they should stone this unfortunate, instead of replying definitely, yes or no, by which he would fall in the trap set by his enemies: the negative being directly against the law, and the affirmative proving him severe and cruel, which would have alienated the saints. Instead of replying as any ordinary person but him would...
  1  notes

He avoided controversy by speaking in parables and not answering directly, just as politicians do today.