30 MAY 2011 by ideonexus

 Francis Bacon's Only Flaw Was that He Was Not Revolutionary

We do not know what we should admire the most, his rich intuitive views on all subjects or the dignified tone of his style. His writings can be compared only with those of Hippocrates on medicine; and they would be neither less admired nor less read if the cultivation of the mind were as dear to the human race as the conservation of health. But only the writings of leading sectarians can achieve a certain vogue; Bacon was not one of them, and his philosophic method was opposed to this: it was...
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He was too dignified, his philosophy to straightforward to make waves in culture, but his simple idea to look at nature for what it is was a revolutionary idea.

24 JAN 2011 by ideonexus

 Jefferson's Intention with “The Philosophy of Jesus of ...

In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurges, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall ...
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A description of the problems Jefferson had with the gospels in their existing form, which were easily twisted for greedy purposes.