Kentuckians havesomething to live down right now, Ken Ham and his Cretin "Museum". But look back to your noble past: read some of the words of Charles Chilton Moore, a godless newspaperman from Lexington who was as bold as any today.
Fifteen hundred years ago, Constantine, who murdered his own wife and children, started the Christian religion.
From that day to this that religion has been the greatest curse that ever afflicted the earth.
This religion teaches that 6,000 years ago God made the first man out of dust - not even mud - and the first woman out of a bone; that God cursed the whole human race because a snake made the woman eat an apple; that God had a son by another man's wife, and that he had this son murdered in order to keep himself from sending all the human race to hell.
This son taught that any man who did not believe that piece of ignorance and priestly lying would go to hell and burn eternally in fire and brimstone.
The Bible, in which these things are taught, favors drunkenness, murder, slavery, lying, stealing and lechery.
He published that in 1900. Fiery bunch, those Southern newspapermen — I am reminded, for some reason, of Twain's Journalism in Tennessee.
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Hah, I love it. Not so "new", are we?
No, no, no, he's gotten the Bible all wrong here. That's not what it says.
The Bible never says it was an apple.
Fiery. Could be more accurate, though. I don't think any scholar would say that Constantine started Xianity, although it might have died out like other mystery religions had he simply ignored.
I like how the creation story can't even get the material right. We should be silicon based life if we were poofed from dust, shouldn't we be?
And come on, Dembski, surely you can at least tell us some details about the magic words used to "design" life. "Abracadabra," "let the living creatures come from the earth," or "fiat lux"? Then we could, you know, try it out, treat ID like science until it is quickly falsified, once again.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Glen Davidson #3
Abracadabra (according to wikipedia at least http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abracadabra) comes from an Aramaic word meaning "I will create as I speak" - so would be an apt magic word for Dog to have started everything off with.
I always thought that "Fiat Lux" sounded like a car shampoo - Let there be sparkling chrome and gleaming leather... "Fiat Lux" washes away all that motoring grime!
I can't access the link from work - does it say what happened to him after publishing that?
I'd imagine there would have been some people in 1900 (or much later) that would have been happy to burn down the newspaper office, tar and feather him, or get out the lynching rope.
Immoral new Atheist!
Oh wait...
Those millitant, fundamentalist new atheists just don't know when to stop, do they? Now they're inventing time machines to plant themselves in the Godly south in the past. Is nothing beyond these immoral godless heathens? Next thing you know, they'll be saying things like that much beloved authors like Mark Twain were critical of religion, or that the founding fathers weren't all bible-toting literalist Christians who wanted to establish a Protestant Christian state.
Please be advised that Tiddy (my cousin) is major asshole in my life. He is currently counter-suing me for frivolous litigation.
I would like it if you did some science experiments about this.
If you are religious, may the lord continue to guide you in mind and deed.
Thank you.
ha! Love VorJack's last line there.
Glen @ 3
He could have been referring that prior to Constantine's endorsement, Christianity was really a cult, but once it had been formalized it became a religion.... Maybe... Not sure.. Perhaps.
Anyhow, it's still interesting that one of the guys so implicit in formalizing Christianity was such a total bastard.
Is #8 some sort of weird failed spam, or drug-induced delusion?
Please do some science experiments about this.
If you still can't get enough of Ken Ham he is subbing for Todd Friel on today's episode of wretched radio. he's got Jason Lisle on there spouting off. quite humorous to listen to. its streaming until tomorrow.
Well, I think we can honestly say that Constantine ended the practical plurality of religion in the empire -- one religion was marked out as The Religion, even superceding the traditional civic religion. It was kind of inevitable that he would select a particularly repressive religion, and that it would become more so as The Religion, ultimately leading to the banning of all other religions.
Almost anything he picked would have been like that -- he could have gone with Manicheanism, and we would be bitching today about that religion. So, in that sense, Constantine "created" Christianity -- as we know it. The theological details are just irrelevant details -- the repression and political ideology represented by it are pure late Roman Empire (evolved, of course, in a cultural sense).
As Philip K. Dick said, we still live in the Iron Prison of Rome.
On the other hand, the world was begging for it -- some form of Islam was acomin' no matter what happened. Someone would have figured out that the world was ripe for a universalist authoritarian religion to bring together all the strands of the hellenistic world and its subsidiaries into one religio-political cult.
Just follow Alexander the Great's story, and you could see that it was basically overdue -- a Celestial King to save mankind by bringing both the sword and the pen. The myth was overdue.
Considering the time and place it took a lot of courage for this guy to write this. I wonder if the Klan burned a cross on his front lawn. One point of contention though, the statement "that religion the greatest curse that ever afflicted the Earth", I think that distinction probably goes to Islam though and not Xtianity. Of course back in 1900 there may not have been an issue with Islamic extremism and terrorism.
... a godless newspaperman from Lexington who was as bold as any today.
Which implies there is a contemporary newspaperperson - or professional in any other journalistic endeavor - of equivalent audacity.
Charles Chilton Moore's reputation may not be treated fairly by calling him the Christopher Hitchens of his day...
re 14:
because there has never been any Christian extremeist and terrorists.
@11: I won't be doing any science experiments that involve clicking on @8's handle.
@16:
Well, if you insist on not including St. Cyril's rape of Hypatia and the destruction of the Library of Alexandria...
@18:
<Dewy-eyed innocence> There's no evidence of rape! They just stripped her naked, brutally tortured, killed and dismembered her, and then burned her remains for Christ! That's completely different! </Dewy-eyed innocence>
GD @ #3 Good point there isn't a whole lot of carbon dust floating around even now, though maybe CaCO3?
QuarkyGideon @ #6 Shhhhh, don't let on, every atheist is "new". Haven't you ever heard of branding?
Egaeus @ #11 #8 was itself a *science experiment* - well no actually it wasn't... never mind.
One more small thing to like about Kentucky I guess. I have to hand it to them, they know how to make decent bourbon whiskey. At least some of them.
I'll have to read up on Mr. Moore, he sounds interesting.
"Moore's epitaph is 'Write me as one who loves his fellow man.'" From The Kentucky Encyclopedia
Militant New Atheist?
I love this guy. And that's a serious beard he has.
"that religion the greatest curse that ever afflicted the Earth"
Nah, that line is just overblown. Smallpox? Earthquakes? War? Hurricanes? Genghis Khan?
Religion can do a lot of damage sure, but I don't think it's a magical potion that transmutates human nature.
Those damn New Atheists have perfected time travel! Run for your lives!
Makes sense, but do read the discussion page. Man, what confusion.
In terms of global lasting damage, only smallpox comes anywhere near close.
"Good people do good things, and evil people do evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." – Steven Weinberg, I think. It's "religion" in a sufficiently wide sense that many political ideologies qualify, but still.
@ #5 - From the link:
So we don't know what happened specifically after he published this, but apparently he was jailed for his blasphemous writing and had the courage to continue with it anyway.
Re: #14
I think someone should post an Internet poll asking which religion has damaged humanity the most.
That'll get to the bottom of it. :-)
Twain's Journalism in Tennessee.
Wow, that was great, PC. I don't recall having read that, thanks.
Kinda reminds me of http://wonkette.com just a little.
MultiTool at #24
actually Genghis Kahn was one of the more positive influences on World History. Secular gov't, democratic structures, global vision.
He crushed the Crusaders AND Islamic rule, and compared to other Empire builders before and after, he was downright merciful, unless you happened to be the .001% which was the ruling class at the time.
Don't buy into the propaganda, the history of those times was written by Monks and Immans .
Read Jack Weatherford's book, troves of documents surfaced from Chinese libraries in the '90s from the Mongol Empire, great reading.
Xenithrys #23
"There's no beard like 19th century beard!" -- Evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz
scooterKPFT @ # 30: Genghis Kahn ... crushed the Crusaders ...
Actually, most of them were lucky enough not to cross his path, though one batch up in the Germany/Poland area got their asses kicked by what was (from GK's pov) little more than a recon mission.
... compared to other Empire builders before and after, he was downright merciful, unless you happened to be the .001% which was the ruling class at the time.
Maybe sometimes. His more routine strategy was to order massacres all around, so that his armies were usually preceded by large waves of refugees who would spread terror amidst and consume resources of whatever unlucky territory was next in the Mongols' line of march.
Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World is an overview of the Eurasian Pax Tartarica (which played a role in catalyzing the Renaissance, among other influences). It describes relatively little of how the Mongol Empire came to be, and much of what is passed over is mega-gory.
30#, I vaguely recall decades ago in a Russian history class that Genghis Khan and his Khanate of the Golden Horde (always loved that poetic description) showed several Ivan the Terribles how a very large land mass populated mostly by small scattered outposts of largely poor and ignorant people could be held as a single entity through a reign of ruthlessness toward the least sign of disobedience with a good dose of swiftly imposed terror thrown in. This professor saw a continuum from Genghis Khan to the Ivans through to the era of the Soviet Union and its iron hold on huge swathes of distant lands and disparate peoples who didn't necessarily appreciate the overlordship.
"Leave no one left to cry."