Thomas Henry Buckle Quotes
The clergy, with a few honorable exceptions, have in all modern countries been the avowed enemies of the diffusion of knowledge, the danger of which to their own profession they, by a certain instinct, seem always to have perceived.
Thomas Henry Buckle, 1821-1862, British Historian, Quoted in John E. Remsberg, The Christ
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
The Roman Catholic Church in America had a very difficult problem with slavery. Catholics were themselves a minoirty, hated and distrusted by many Protestants. In most of the country, the distrusr was based on their large immigrant population, but in the South Catholic theology was hated and the Vatican and Pope were particular targets. The Catholic Clergy generally did not want to take sides in the most contentious issue in America since its inception. The Southern Catholic Clergy did not have that option as in the South, anyone who was not a supporter of slavery was an "enemy of the community and subject to all kinds of violence." Some Southern priests were willing to take the personal risk but did not want to put their followers at risk. In a strange consequence, Catholics--especially Irish Catholics--fought on both sides of the Civil War and often against each other. While it was not an exemplary moral behavior for the Church, there were difficult pressures on Catholic leaders. Further, most of the lowest and most difficult, undesirable jobs were filled by Catholics and most Catholic laymen so and end to slavery as the start of pitting the Catholics against the Blacks. So there was not a groundswell for abolition in most Catholic parishes even in the North.
Vanderbuilt University was then under the Control of the Tennessee Methodist Episcopal Church and Bishop McTyeire served as the University President. Winchell had written that man had been on earth long before that dates that hade been officially proscribed to Adam and Eve by most church theologians, The university asked for the Professor’s resignation, and when he refused (See {612831}), he was fired. There was no such thing as Academic Freedom at Vanderbuilt at the time. But this case spurred its adoption throughout the country.
The Roman Catholic Clergy as well as the Vatican was quite corrupt in Luther’s time which was one of the reasons for his reform effort. Throughout history some clerics have abused their positions and roles and acted as impediments to the faith in their own religions.
This view is typical of most religiously educated Muslims and accounts in large part for the fact that the Islamic world is so scientifically backward—especially in the context of the great Islamic scientific development around 1000 AD. Religiously Islam closed and so did the entire outlook of the people, and the existing religious norm accounts for most of the backwardness of Islamic lands.
The use of science as a political tool is a relatively recent phenomenon.
While this is very true in the long term, the Church in the short term has almost always supported actively or by its neutrality, the ruling class as opposed to those who would make revolutionary change even to the extent of participating in the torture, murder, and intimidation of most of the Catholics in the society. The ruling class, in turn, supported the Church and used the power of the state to enforce religious doctrine and prevent alternative religious views and practices to prevail even if only with small minorities. See {632407} for another Mises quotation articulating examples of this.
The classic dilemma is that religious moderates and scientists do not argue to force everyone to follow the dictates of science, but in almost all societies and nations, religious fundamentalists strive to force their beliefs on all and make disagreement illegal.
Even learned men with some science background believed in witches.
This quotation was a milestone on scientific and technological development. For the first time in human history the smartest and most creative and visionary people, could not understand or comprehend the direction in which science and technology was moving. It now took people with specialized mathematical capability. Experience and intuitive insight was actually counter-productive in understanding the world as it was being revealed. Intelligence, creativity, perseverance and hard work, for the first time was insufficient. Education and training was the new requirement in addition to the others.
The Founding Fathers represented a wide range of religious beliefs from orthodox Christians to Agnostics and Atheists. Most considered themselves Christian, but having studied the terrible results of European religious dissention in Government were careful to keep government and religion separate. In New York City, for example, when George Washington was first inaugurated as President, there was no religious ceremony in the government buildings. However, the President and all the Congress then went to Trinity Church close by and had a religious service. The earliest example of separation of church and state was a separation of official religion—not an elimination of religion.
