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5cd66a5
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This century will be called 's century. He was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. . Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer , and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts. His light has broken in on some of the clergy, and the greatest man who to-day occupies the pulpit of one of the orthodox churches, Henry Ward Beecher, is a believer in the theories of --a man of more genius than all the clergy of that entire church put together. ...The church teaches that man was created perfect, and that for six thousand years he has degenerated. demonstrated the falsity of this dogma. He shows that man has for thousands of ages steadily advanced; . Religion and science are enemies. One is a superstition; the other is a fact. One rests upon the false, the other upon the true. One is the result of fear and faith, the other of investigation and reason.
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evolution
myth
true
nature
reason
fear
science
atonement
origin-of-species
orthodox-christianity
false
clergy
garden-of-eden
original-sin
orthodox
biology
charles-darwin
fact
investigation
geology
dogma
survival-of-the-fittest
darwin
genius
england
ignorance
superstition
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Robert Green Ingersoll |
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e6d3d72
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...Turn our thoughts, in the next place, to the characters of learned men. The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed all mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; knowledge has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a free inquiry? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes. [ ]
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chaldeans
persians
priesthood
protestant
sect
teutons
clergy
romans
hindu
reformation
hinduism
greeks
priests
monopoly
science-vs-religion
muslim
islam
knowledge
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John Adams |
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652d153
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"That's the trouble with you preachers," he said. "You've all got too good to believe in anything," and he drove off with a look of disgust and righteousness." --
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righteousness
clergy
preachers
nihilism
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Flannery O'Connor |
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72dc250
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The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God's love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God's Word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.
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christianity
jesus
pastoral-ministry
clergy
god-s-love
ministry
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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7922b2c
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Because sometimes the Church seems like those posed circus tableaus where the curtain lifts and men, white, zinc-oxide, talcum-powder statues, freeze to represent abstract Beauty. Very wonderful. But I hope there will always be room for me to dart about among the statues, don't you, Father Stone?
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religion
clergy
church
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Ray Bradbury |
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4ceb9f3
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"It's common knowledge that the "church" is nothing more than an invention of the priesthood designed to swindle the ordinary people of the empire out of just about everything they own."
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religion
clergy
organized-religion
society
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David Eddings |