Buster Daily

I hope that you would agree that it is a prerequisite...or would you rely on oral tradition? The point is that when the West discovered/invented science, it happened at the time that happened to be dominated by Christianity. I have little doubt the the written record of scientific discovery comes to us from those who were literate. I also have little doubt that literacy in that period of Western history correlated to Christianity. The cause/effect relationship(s) are complicated.

Vorkosigan

So did death camps, enforced sterilization of the retarded, and colonialism on a global scale. Therefore............


Vorkosigan

Buster Daily

Seriously, why the fixation on Thomas Jefferson? How fast do you guys think his broadband connection was in 18th century colonial America? Holy crap. You are all arrogant as s*&t if you disregard the vast information at your fingertips as being crucial to where your world-view currently resides. (Also, on a side note, I am always amused/disgusted when Jefferson's progressive and controversial for the time views on people of African descent are used to condemn him as a racist.)

No Robots

He is an articulate and prominent spokesman for a Christianity that rejects miracles. You've all at least heard of him, and I have yet to find anyone on this board willing to attack him. Ipetrych calls "pathetic" everyone who holds Jefferson's view. I would like him to summon the courage to call Jefferson himself "pathetic", or withdraw his statement.

While we wait, here are a couple of choice quotations from Jefferson:

I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.

To Dr. Benjamin Rush, Washington, Apr. 21, 1803

Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christian. I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of one only God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian.

To Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June 26, 1822

No Robots

Oh, yeah, and show no mercy, here is the contextualized quotation that seems to have confused you:

The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.

To John Adams, April 11, 1823.

Toto

Only one poster here is fixated on Jefferson, and that poster is also obsessed with Constantin Brunner. There is only one place in Jefferson's writings where he refers to himself as a Christian - and then it is to call himself a true Christian, implying that most of the followers of Jesus are confused.

I think most posters here see Jefferson's views on Jesus as an interesting reflection of his times, but that's it.

No Robots

Don't forget Jeebus. And Spinoza. And Michael Servetus. I know it's not cool to have heroes. My bad. I'm surprised, though, to see you resorting to ad hominem attacks, Toto.

But are they "pathetic", a laughable attempt to hang on to a dying creed? Or are they a science-based recasting of that creed? I hold the latter.

No Robots

Oh, yeah, and I'm hardly the only guy around here to be talking about Jefferson. I guess that only some references count as "obsessive".

Toto

No R - I wanted to make sure that Buster knew that most posters here are not obsessed with Jefferson.

I think there is a difference between having heros and refusing to either look at their flaws or build on their work.

Jefferson's views on Jesus were interesting and advanced for his time. (Jefferson wrote before the grammar of Koine Greek was fully understood, before most modern Biblical criticism, at a time when finding naturalistic explanations for events in the Bible was cutting edge theology.)

Refusing to see any advances in understanding the Bible in the past few centuries and clinging to Jefferson's views might be characterized as a pathetic attempt to hang on to a dying creed.

Toto

You will find that most of those posts discuss Jefferson as an architect of the first amendment. His thinking in that matter is still relevant to statutory interpretation, unlike his forays into theology.