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Boswell first confronts Johnson with Hume’s ideas in late July 1763, just a few months after his first meeting with Johnson. He spoke of the Politician and agriculturalist George Dempster whose principles had been poisoned by a ‘noted infidel writer’ that is, Hume.
Johnson’s response was that
Hume and other sceptical innovators are vain men and will gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to error. Truth is a cow which will yield such people no more milk and so they are gone to milk the bull.[4]
But what Johnson went on to say is also important:
Everything which Hume has advanced against Christianity had passed through my mind long before he wrote. Always remember this, that after a system is well settled upon positive evidence, a few partial objections ought not to shake it. The human mind is so limited that it cannot take in all the parts of a subject, so there may be objections raised against any thing [5].
What role did religion play in Johnson’s life? Boswell tried to present him as a High Anglican Tory and Christians today of a conservative inclination today see Johnson as an antidote to what they consider to be the optimistic rationalism of some enlightenment thinking. //
Nicholas Hudson, in his book Samuel Johnson and Eighteenth Century Thought, sums this up:
Few writers were so knowledgeable or sociable to combine many sides of contemporary thought into an understanding of life distinctive for its humanity and good sense. His learning and complexity make his writings especially useful as the starting point for a broader investigation of eighteenth century thought. [18]
Earlier this month, a handful of teenagers were charged with felonies for leaving marks on an LGBT mural that was painted on the road. In fact, there's a rash of these kinds of vandalizations happening all over the nation and each one is treated like a massive hate crime by Democrats and activists.
So holy is the LGBT cause to the left that they're willing to go above and beyond to make you accept it.
So, you'll pardon me if I'm not too moved by complaints from the left, the LGBT activist community, and elected Democrats when they clutch their pearls and run to their fainting couches over the Ten Commandments being displayed in school. //
Let's be real here. These activists aren't mad about religious symbols going up in schools. They put theirs up in schools every chance they get. They preach the word of queer activism to children as young as four, and try to hide it from parents if they know there would be backlash about it. These people are zealots.
Their issue with the Ten Commandments is that these laws come from a rival religion. One they hate more than any other, despite it being a religion that allows for these people to live, work, and commit their sin without worrying about being murdered, tortured, or imprisoned for it. Hilariously, they'd much rather show their support toward religions that would do horrendous things to the LGBT community if their dominance was established here in the West, but they don't like talking about that.
After Harrison Butker’s speech, the left is targeting Latin Mass Catholics. But it will never stop until all Christian morality is banished from the public square. //
Butker’s statements in his commencement speech were no more foreign or extreme than the medieval garb that he and millions of others donned on graduation stages all over the West this spring. Indeed, the left isn’t terrified of the Latin Mass because of its medieval optics. They could not care less about the theological debates that truly divide us in our liturgical practices.
Rather, they want to destroy the family values that undergird the Judeo-Christian West in all its forms. These are not the preserve of Latin Mass Catholics or even Catholics generally. They belong to us all as decent human beings.
Portraying Latin Mass Catholics as a tiny minority diverging from the majority of Catholics glosses over the fact that we are talking about basic biblical principles here. Thou shall not kill. Male and female, He created them. Husbands, honor your wives and, wives, submit to your husbands. Comfort the dying and the sick. Walk in the light of truth.
‘Hippy’ has come to mean many things, and most people think of it as a harmless, ‘peace and love’ movement, or simply a way of dressing. In reality, my experience of hippies is one of angry doomers, and the flowery visage is a marketing ploy perpetuated by some of the most intolerant and controlling people I have ever known.
That’s the clincher. The beliefs held by my fellow hippies were at odds with their image. Today, we can see it more obviously - activists who preach peace but are the most rage-filled and violent of us all. They exist in every movement that is fighting for something good, yet they seldom represent what is good.
This entire ordeal is dumb. The statue never should have been allowed in the first place. Further, the leniency applied to those tearing down statues of Thomas Jefferson can't be ignored. Are we really a country that lets people off for destroying works of art but charges people with hate crimes for damaging a statue of satan? I guess we are.
What is Christian Nationalism besides a slur to put in scare quotes that let the left discredit an opponent without having to talk about issues? It starts with the fact that America was founded by Christians who acknowledged the role of Christ in establishing a just government. The Mayflower Compact states three reasons for founding Plymouth Colony, "the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country." Similarly, the Jamestown Charter says the goal of Virginia Colony is "the furtherance of so noble a work, which may, by the providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of his divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian religion to such people, as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God, and may in time bring the infidels and savages, living in those parts, to human civility, and to a settled and quiet government."
From there, there is a straight line to the Founders. The First Amendment prohibition on the establishment of religion only applied to the federal government, with several states maintaining religious tests to hold office. Some state constitutions still require officeholders to profess a belief in God. It wasn't until Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) that religious tests were struck down. The purpose of the First Amendment was to prevent any Christian denomination — the target was explicitly the Anglican Church because of its close ties to England, which had served as a quasi-governmental agency for the Crown before independence — from achieving national church status. //
Christian liberty only happens within the context of a correctly formed conscience. Doing what you want because it feels good is not liberty; it is licentiousness and anarchy. Over the last 60 years, we've discovered that the glue holding America together was not individualism but our common Christian heritage. Without that glue, we see our culture disintegrating before our eyes. It is only by viewing the Constitution and the rights stemming from it through the lens of our Christian founding that we will survive. //
Dieter Schultz streiff
a day ago edited
I searched for the passage that they had written, I thought, in the Federalist but without a doubt, one of the Founders, that specifically addressed the Judeo-Christian teachings that allowed what they created with the USA. Noting that none of the other religions (Muslim, Hindu, or any of the others) allowed the type of government that they created, they were all missing in one way or the other what they needed when they created this country.
I didn't find it but I'm certain that the Founders knew and stated that right from the start that what they did recognized the unique Judeo-Christian tradition of what they created and none of the other religions allowed it. //
Laocoön of Troy Dieter Schultz
a day ago edited
George Washington's letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island might be interesting to you:
Gentlemen:
While I received with much satisfaction your address replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced on my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.
The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.
If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.
The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.
May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.
May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy. ~ G. Washington
Not much room for being a busybody, judgemental Karen is there? Not much room for Jew hatred and bigotry is there? And how does savage lefty lawfare and compulsion square with Washington's "just administration of a good government"?
Helsinki prosecutor Anu Mantila argued Finnish courts should ban from the internet the booklet, Rasanen’s tweet, and an audio recording of Rasanen defending Christian views. Mantila also seeks punitive fines. “Male and Female He Created Them” was published in 2004, several years before Finland adopted the antiterrorism laws now being used to prosecute the two Christians for “hate speech.”
“With the right police and prosecutor, we could expect to see similar cases crop up across Europe and in fact around the world,” noted Alliance Defending Freedom International lawyer Paul Coleman, who is assisting the Christians’ legal defense. Hate crimes laws like Finland’s are on the books in many European nations and American states and cities.
Rasanen said the most difficult part of her prosecution has been the prosecutor’s false accusations against her, including that Rasanen considers homosexuals inferior. She said that is “against my conviction” as a Christian. Christianity teaches that every human is made in God’s image and so beloved by God that He sacrificed His own Son to wash away every sin ever committed.
“We represent the common traditional classical understanding of family and sexual ethics, and now this has been labeled widely in our society and also in the established Lutheran church as something which is … not only offending and extremist but it’s also criminal,” Pohjola said.
Pohjola is the bishop of a small non-state church body that adheres to the Bible’s teachings, which Finland’s state church has in large part abandoned. The Federalist interviewed Pohjola in person in 2021, and Rasanen in person in 2022.
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