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To: Hank Kerchief
The freedom you enjoy (what's left of it) was very much made possible by the Atheist Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet "Common Sense" swayed many to become patriotic defender of America's independence.

Some have characterized Paine as having Deistic sensibilities. Cf. this 1707 address:

Thomas Paine on "The Study of God" Delivered in Paris on January 16, 1797, in a Discourse to the Society of Theophilanthropists

It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of Divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles. He can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.

When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well executed statue or a highly finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talents of the artist. When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How then is it, that when we study the works of God in the creation, we stop short, and do not think of God? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only, and thereby separated the study of them form the Being who is the author of them. . . .

The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of the creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter; and jump over all the rest, by saying that matter is eternal.

Why do you take a couple of noisome idiots claiming to be atheists as the spokesmen for atheism. What would you think of me, if I chose the most despicable of self-proclaimed Christians as your example and spokesman? Hank

Dawkins, Hitchens, Myers: not exactly illiterate, inarticulate Fred Phelpses, are they? With their educational bona fides, they're considered a who's who of the intelligentsia, Hank, and they're lionized in the media. That same media, by the way, are perennially taking unlettered hatemongers like Phelps and setting them up as oracles of the [Christian, pro-life, pro-family, you name it] community.

89 posted on 05/25/2009 4:27:42 AM PDT by rhema ("Break the conventions; keep the commandments." -- G. K. Chesterton)
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To: rhema

Typo: Paine’s address was delivered in 1797, as the next paragraph’s heading indicates.


90 posted on 05/25/2009 4:31:06 AM PDT by rhema ("Break the conventions; keep the commandments." -- G. K. Chesterton)
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To: rhema
“With their educational bona fides, they're considered a who's who of the intelligentsia, ...”

Only by mental pygmies, who are easily fooled by so-celled “educational bona fides,” i.e. pieces of paper handed out to good little academics who can spit out their leftist professors’ pet theories, darlings of the leftist media, that is, all the media.

Good grief. “Intelligentsia.” Not one of them has ever produced a single thing of value in their lives. (That does not mean they have never produced anything that some people like—pigs like slop.)

Hank

94 posted on 05/25/2009 12:42:16 PM PDT by Hank Kerchief
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