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 | | From: | Andrew W \(Paranormal Agnostic\) | | Subject: | Humans are just walking dust mounds | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 10:42:54 +1100 |
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 | The christian god allegedly created us from the dust of the ground of this
planet, therefore we are nothing more than walking dust mounds with his
spirit temporarily superimposed onto us.
He allegedly only has one child - Jesus. There rest of us are not really his
children in the strict sense according to christianity and we were only
created for one thing and one thing only - to love and worship the christian
god in a state of perfection and give him companionship for the rest of his
lonely perpetual existence.
How a walking dust mound is supposed to reach a state of perfection is a
mystery.
Why he would not use better quality building materials for the task is also
a mystery.
The dust he found on the ground to make us with cost him nothing so
basically he gets what he paid for. He can't really complain.
And why he would want to punish walking dust mounds for not reaching a state
of perfection and not loving him (even though they've never seen or talked
to him in contemporary times), and what this punishing/torturing exercise
will ultimately achieve, is even more bizarre, especially since the walking
dust mounds, when they die and go to rest in the graveyard, all that will be
left is God's spirit which he placed into them during their birth. So
technically, when the walking dust mounds die, the christian god will only
be punishing parts of himself.
'God' has allegedly always existed, so why did he wait until as recently as
the last few thousand years to create free thinking companions for himself?
Perhaps he got extremely lonely all of a sudden. Why would a creator be
happy for eons and then suddenly get lonely many eons into his existence?
Perhaps all of his angels have left him.
--
Andrew W. (Paranormal Agnostic) An interest in the paranormal (spiritual)
but with acknowledgement that it's existence can neither be proved - to
others, nor disproved (agnostic).
Knowledge is light and light casts the darkest shadows when coming from only
one source.
"How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has
been for us." ~ Pope Leo X (1513-1521)
Religion Exposed!
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~ajwerner
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| | From: | Paulo Joe Jingy | | Subject: | Re: Humans are just walking dust mounds | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 00:27:21 -0800 |
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| Andrew W (Paranormal Agnostic) wrote:
> "How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ
has
> been for us." ~ Pope Leo X (1513-1521)
> Religion Exposed!
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Lies Exposed!
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/popeleox.html
Leo's Line
Did Pope Leo X Really Refer to Jesus as a Myth?
James Patrick Holding
If you've hung around low-rent skeptical web pages at all, you have
probably seen this gotcha quote at one time or another:
"What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!" Pope Leo X.
Before I worked for my state's prison system, I had a job as a
researcher at my state's department which oversaw emergency medical
services. During that year I worked there, I had several requests
concerning a chemical called viton. The word had gotten around to EMS
and law enforcement personnel nationwide that this very dangerous
chemical was found in various automobile parts, and that if there was an
accident and there was a fire involved, the viton could be released and
would eat through protective clothes and flesh in an instant.
Sound too wild to be true? It was -- this was a rumor that was passed
uncritically from one source to the next, without any verification.
"Viton" did not exist as such (it is actually something used in the
rubber to make o-rings). After the third inquiry I decided to try and
track the rumor to its source if I could. I tracked backwards from a
sheriff's department in rural Nevada, to a slightly larger law
enforcement agency in Utah, who pinned the blame on a fax they received
from a consulting firm in San Antonio -- which turned out not to exist.
Ultimately, however, the rumor seemed to go back to a tow truck operator
in Florida.
I bring up this story as an example paralleling the story of the quote
above. This quote is referenced by countless skeptical sites on the
Internet. Troubled by this one? Don't waste any sweat, or any viton for
that matter. First of all, as I've noted before, it's not as though some
offhand comment by a single Pope is enough to overturn 1500-2000 years
of relevant secular and religious scholarship. The skeptics would like
for you to believe that perhaps old Leo committed a serious gaffe here
in which he admitted what was otherwise hidden for nearly 1500 years,
namely, that Christ never actually existed, but those of us living
outside of Area 51 need only realize that Leo's words, if genuine, need
be taken as no more authoritative than those of, say, Joseph Wheless,
who also quoted it.
And speaking of Wheless -- in doing my trace on this quote, I found that
he is actually one of the earliest persons who made use of this quote
for skeptical purposes; the other earliest person was Robert Taylor --
author from the 19th century of his own ridiculous works, including one
claiming that the entire Bible was written by Egyptian monks in 250 BC
[Diegesis, 429], and he uses a slightly different version of the quote.
In the process of research I scoured the web for any pages that were
using this quote, to see if anyone could give me a source earlier than
Taylor. Here's some interesting data:
* The quote is used mostly by skeptics of the intellectual low rent
district -- people like Acharya S, Brooks Trubee, and deceased
Nazi-pusher Revilo P. Oliver, who will accept anything that makes
Christianity look bad, even at the cost of selling their integrity. The
Secular Web folks don't use it that I found, other than in their
historical curiosities section where they keep the works of Wheless.
Shamefully, the quote is also used by some anti-Catholic/KJV-Only sort
of sites.
* The overwhelming majority of sites who use the quote provide only
the quote and attribution, and nothing else. No context, no citation. In
other words, they pass it around uncritically. That's Warning Bell #1.
* Warning Bell #2 is the fact that only two sites that I have found
so far offer any sort of context. One claims the quote was made in the
presence of one of Leo's staffers, Pietro Bembo. Another (written by
Revilo P. Oliver) says that the quote was made in the presence of
"intimates." Neither provides a citation or a source for this
information. (But the first does turn out to be right, sort of -- keep
reading!)
* Warning Bell #3 takes a little knowledge to hear ringing clearly.
A small number of sites (including Trubee's) do give a citation, which
looks like this:
(Encyc. Brit., 14th Ed. xix, pg. 217).
Ah, encyclopedias! The best sources around for top-flight
third-grade research. But here's the facts: neither Trubee nor anyone
using this cite (which is reproduced exactly this way everywhere I have
found it, also suggesting that it is being passed around uncritically)
actually picked up a 14th ed. of Britannica and found this quote.
Britannica's 14th edition was printed from 1929-1973, long before any of
these websites were a twinkle in their Webmaster's eyes, and in some
cases, when some of these people were in diapers. But with the help of
an alert reader in the UK, I now have photocopies of the relevant pages
from the 14th edition. Vol. 19, where this quote is supposed to be,
doesn't even contain the article on Leo X, which is in Vol. 13. Vol. 19
is from "Raynal to Sarreguemines" and p. 217 is the middle of an article
on Respiration. Nice pix of a pigeon's lungs and a goat's branchiole,
but no Leo. The actual Leo article from pp. 926-7 of Vol. 13 says a lot
about Leo's lackadaisical attitude towards spending, but has no mention
of the "fable" quote either way. Just for kicks now, the 15th edition of
Britannica, which I have access to, does not say anything about this
quote in its article on Leo, and I have received a copy -- from an
associate in a New Zealand library -- of the 11th edition article, which
also lacks the quote. Britannica does not know or care about this quote
at all.
Early in my research I decided, for an experiment, to have
someone ask several skeptics who use this quote where they got it from.
The "best" answer came from someone who attributed it to an author named
Jovius, in a work called De Vita Leonis X, published in 1551. We were
told that this was in the "Vatican Archives." When we asked whether this
person had actually seen this item at the Vatican, we were told that the
skeptic "knew someone who had access, once, long ago" and encouraged us
to look up the item in a search engine. I did this -- the item is
referenced in the Catholic Encyclopedia article noted below, which
specifically says that this saying does not come down to us from Leo.
Scholarship by gossip!
That alternative view, presented by this item from the online
Catholic Encyclopedia, claims rather than the quote originated with a
near-contemporary of Leo, a Catholic apostate named John Bale. No cite
is given of any work where the quote appears; this is no better than
what the skeptics offer, for my purposes. A couple of the skeptics have
been asked about this Bale attribution, and significantly, their answers
don't amount to much. Acharya tells an inquirer that the quote to Leo
"has been widely reported in numerous texts," and for her, that's good
enough reason to think it genuine. Yes, scholarship by gossip again.
Another skeptic, who never gives his name but offers a very amateurish
and annoying set of essays under an address sort of like askwhy.co.uk,
replied to an inquirer by ripping into the Catholic Encyclopedia article
for not 'fessing up to Leo's bad habits in other areas, but never
actually answers the question posed, "Where did this quote come from?"
Next step: An alert reader has informed me that John Bale, who
was a member of the Carmelite order, was a playwright. The following is
found here:
John Bale (1495-1563) was an Englishman who had joined the
Carmelites and was educated at Cambridge where he was first exposed to
Protestant ideals. He abandoned the order by 1535 and enjoyed the
protection and patronage of leading pro-Protestant factions in the court
of Henry VIII. During this time he wrote a number of plays and several
tracts that attacked the papacy....
This is confirmed by The Complete Plays of John Bale (ed. Peter
Happe), who notes that Bale in his plays "introduced a variety of matter
to satirise the Roman Church and parody its rites and customs." [15] Our
alert reader referred me also to Joseph McCabe's, Rationalist's
Encyclopedia, which has an article on Leo X, which says:
The statement that he said, "We owe all this to the fable of
Jesus Christ," appears in the work of an ex-priest long after his death,
and we cannot check it. Encyclopaedia articles on Leo are based upon
Roscoe's Life and Pontificate of Leo X (4 vols., 1805), which is very
unreliable.
McCabe's "ex-priest" is probably John Bale, but McCabe was being
a little slippery here. I doubt if McCabe had any worthwhile authority
to say whether or not Roscoe's work was reliable or not (McCabe offers
no specifics, but seems to hint that it should have said more about
Leo's supposed ual misadventures -- our research assistant "Punkish"
reports that Roscoe was indeed criticized for making Leo his hero, but
not because of unreliability), but news flash: It does explain where the
quote came from. I obtained an 1853 reprint of this book, in 2 volumes.
On page 387-8 of Vol. 2, Roscoe notes that poor Leo has been the subject
of extremes of praise and scurrilous insult -- among the latter, a quote
indeed from a satirical work of Bale (with a "historical" format)
entitled The Pageant of Popes. I previously thought that this work was
lost, but it turns out that it is still around in the UK, and a helpful
reader there has provided photocopies. In this work Bale "professes it
to be his intention to give [the Catholic Church] double according to
her works" and places this quote in Leo's mouth as a reply, yes, to Mr.
Bembo after the latter read a passage from the Gospels. (Ironically,
even in Roscoe's time, he says with perhaps some exasperation, this
story "has been repeated by three or four hundred different writers,
without any authority whatsoever, except that of the author above
referred to.") Let's have a look at that quote as it appears in the
Pageant (material found on pages ranging from 179-180):
Leo the tenth was a Florentine borne, of the noble house of
Medicea, and called ere he were Pope John Medices. He being Deacon and
Cardinal of Saint Maries, contrarie to all hope was chosen to succede
Julius. He beinge diligetly from his youth trained up in learning under
learned schoolmaisters, and especially one Angelus Politianus, did
afterward greatly favour learned men. When he was but. xiv. yeres olde
he was made cardinall by Innocentius the. viii. and at the yeres of
xxxviii. he obtained the papacie. This Leo was of his owne nature a
gentil and quiet person:but often times ruled by those that were cruell
and contencious men, whom he suffered to do in many matters according to
their insolent wil. He addicting himselfe to nicenesse, and takinge ease
did pamper his fleshe in diverse vanities and carnal pleasures: At
banqueting he delighted greatly in wine and musike: but had no care of
preaching the Gospell, nay was rather a cruell persecutour of those that
began then, as Luther and other to reveale the light thereof: for on a
time when a cardinall Bembus did move a question out of the Gospell, the
Pope gave him a very contemptuouse aunswere saiying: All ages can
testifie enough howe profitable that fable of Christe hath ben to us and
our companie: Sleidan faith he sente letters and bulles of pardons into
all nations for suche as woulde give money for them, the effectes of his
pardons were diverse, some especially to sell licence to eate butter,
chese, egges, milke, and fleshe upon forbidden dates, and for this
purpose he sent divers treasurers into al coutreis, and namelye one
Samson a monke of Millaine into Germany, who by these pardons gathered
out of sundrie places such hewge sommes of money that the worlde
wondered at it, for he offered in one day to geve for the Papacie above
an hundred and twentie thousand duckates.
You might think, "Well, this sounds pretty historical overall."
But check the next section:
Martin Luther being singularly wel studied in the scriptures,
and cotinuing at Wittemberge in Germanye (where these pardons polled
maynely) began to enforme and teache the people howe muche they were
abbused, to give such greate sommes of money for suche trifles as were
nothing profitable, and wished the to be better advised in bestowing
theyr money, whereupon he purchased the Popes bitter curse against him
and his adherents, to the no littell disturbance of the whole estate of
Germanye: for because by the preaching of Luther, and his bookes
painting out the treacherie of the court of Rome, the princes of
Germanye, as the Duke of Saxony, the Lantgraue and other wold not yelde
so much as in time past the Pope had commanded by usurpation. The
Emperour and they in the ende fell together by the eares, by the Popes
procurement, as at large is set forth in Sleidan, and can not so aptly
in this place be reported. Other enormities which in the Popes pardons
moved Luther were these: The people were perswaded that if they bought
these pardons they nede not to seke any further for salvation, and that
no sinne coulde be so horryble, but that by these indulgences it shuld
be forgeven, and that the sowles that lye tormented in Purgatorie
shoulde flie into heaven forthwith, as sone as the money receyved for
these pardons at the charge of their friendes shoulde be put into the
Popes cofers. But to returne to Pope Leo: he made xxxi. cardinals in one
day, wherby he got greate bribes and muche treasure, but the same day
appeared manye horrible fightes and great tempestes arose, with vehement
windes, thonders and lightninges, vehementlye runshinge upon the Churche
where the Pope and his Cardinals were with such force, y it shooke downe
an idol made for the picture of Christ like a childe in the lappe of the
virgine Marye: also it broke S. Peters keyes out of his hand. These
things were enterpreted to prognosticate the decay of the Popes
kingdome, and thereupon many wrote bitter verses.
In the next section, Bale explains that as Leo went out to
conduct Mass, a "great roofe of Marble stone" fell down behind him,
killing some of his guards. Does anyone -- any skeptic especially --
want to argue that Bale is writing history here? Bale was not a
historian, but he had plenty against the Catholic Church. Here are some
quotes from his Dedication to the Pageant:
For as the holye ghoste hath taughte mee I have called that
Romaine Sinagogge the mutherer of Godlye men, wicked Jesabell, the
horned beast, the impe of the Drago, the doughter of the devill, the
spouse of Sathan, speaking blasphemies, the purple beast, the misticall
Babilon, the great strumpet with whom the kinges of the earth have
comitted fornication, which have dronke of the wyne of her fornication,
the woma cloathed in purple, scarlet, gould, pearles and precious
stones, having a goulden cuppe full of all filthines & lustes of the
world, the mother of fornication, and droncke with the bloud of the
saintes of JESUS CHRIST, the habitatio of devils, and the cage of all
evill spirites and hatefull birdes....
There is yet a thirde matter which forced mee hereunto, and
having seene and heard these thinges vehemently moved me to write. This
is the precepte of Christe in the xviii. Chapter of the Revelationof S.
John: For a voyce came from heaven from the right hand of the father and
the everlasting throne of Christe, with a great voyce founded in our
eares saying: Go from her my people lest ye be made partakers of her
wickedness, and ye receive part of her punishment. For her sinnes are
gone up to heaven, and God hath remembred her wickednes. And thou
commaundemet followeth which was given against the beast with seven
heades. Reward her even as she hath rewarded you, and give her double
according to her works, and poure in double to her in the same cup which
she filled unto you. And forasmuch as she glorified her selfe and lived
wantonly, so much poure you into her of punshment and sorrowe. This is
the worde of the Lorde declared unto us as well here as in the fiftye
Chap. of Jeremy. That this serpent might perish & all his doinges
brought to nought. Yet for al this I do wel remeber the sayings of S.
Paule, that al Princes ought to be honoured although they be wicked and
unprofitable for a common wealth, because they be placed there of God,
neither to speake evill of them beinge but wormes, dust and ashes,
Neither dare I murmur against the providence of God, which is contrary
to his holy worde. Therefore from the bottome of my hart I beseech our
Lorde and Redeemer Jesus Christe, that he woulde have mercye uppon all
Kinges, Princes and Nations, and so provide that all nations maye be so
governed as is most tending to his glory: For whole reveng he hath most
stoutly fortifyed mee up in this my old age. Not studying to derogate or
take awaye the honour from anye christian Kinge, but onely to invey
against the Romishe beast, the Synagog of Sathan, and most wicked
Antichrist, with the writings and testimonye of most learned men.
If the vehemencye of my stile shall offende thee, beholde the
marvelous force of the holye ghoste in the Prophete David and most holy
king, who in the Lordes cause most stoutlye saide: I have hated the
congregation of the wicked, Psal. 25. He promiseth also afterwarde by
his Prohpetes, that he woulde destroye the brothell houses and wicked
places, Ezechi. 16. I will shewe fayth the Lord unto all Nations thy
nakednes, and to al kingdomes thy shame Nahum. 3. Thy dishonour and
filthines shall be opened, and thy reproche shall be seene, I will be
revenged, and none shall resiste mee, Esay 47. Woe be unto those Kinges
as manye as have worshipped the beast or have ayded her, or have
received helpe of her, or have committed fornication with her, as many
as have served her, and have joyned handes against the Lambe, and waged
battell for her cause, because their names are not written in the booke
of lyfe from the beginninge of the worlde. And the Lambe shel overcome
them at the last like a Lorde of Lordes, and kinge of kinges, and they
shall go together with the beast to destruction and utter dampnation,
Apocalips 17. GOD therefore give in the hartes of Christians whom the x.
hornes do shadowe, that they maye make her desolate and leave her naked,
that they maye eate her fleshe and burne her in fire, that is, let her
abide her last punshment for the sheding of the innocent blood, of so
manye faithfull Christians. Be it done, Be it done. Amen.
In short, the evidence indicates that the skeptics are posting
fiction as fact, using the work of someone who thought the Catholic
Church to be the whore of Babylon.
So then -- based on the data, as far as I'm concerned, anyone
using this quote for polemical purposes deserves to have their license
to think revoked. But if any skeptic can answer the questions following,
providing documentation for their replies, I will revoke this essay and
report the facts. Not allowing Bale as a source, the questions are:
o When did Leo make this statement (the year is enough)?
o To whom did Leo make it, and who heard it?
o What was the context that prompted Leo to make this statement?
o In what document did those who heard it, report it?
o What reaction, if any, was there to this statement?
o In what contemporary works is all of this reported?
o Based on the above, show what in context the "fable" Leo
refers to -- the entire existence of a man named Jesus? Not his
existence, but just certain events? Etc.
I think that's enough to keep the Peanut Gallery busy for a
while, don't you?
Now for a brief update. It seems we've managed to get a few
Skeppies to check out their consciences and remove the Leo line from
their sites. One of these, Mr. Brooks "I Ain't No Bigot, You Google-Eyed
Pinhead Fanatic Barbarian" Trubee, was prodded by a reader to remove the
line, and here is what else he had to say:
It is interesting that [Holding] feels so threatened by the
idea that Pope Leo X was an atheist. In his article, [Holding] glosses
over the real story about Leo X, namely that he was one of the most
corrupt, morally bankrupt popes the Catholic Church has inflicted on the
world. In fact, it has been claimed that this pope's excesses were so
outrageous that he helped ignite the Protestant reformation. If
[Holding] really wants to embrace Pope Leo X as a beloved brother in
Christ, he is perfectly free to do so.
Gee heck, man. I had no idea this was an article about Leo's
lifestyle. I really, really thought it was about how Skeptics used his
fabricated quote. Was Leo an atheist? I don't care. Was he a moral mess?
I don't doubt it. Was he a brother in Christ? I have no idea, I don't
have his spirit here. What's really interesting is the need L'il Brooks
sees to insert his own personal psychoanalysis (was his use of the quote
a sign that he was "threatened" by religious truth?) and change the
subject from a red horse to a blue one. No surprise there. Brooks been
runnin' from real arguments from our quarters since Day 1. As I say in
my article, "You may be a fundamentalist atheist if...":
You think if a Christian won't address your arguments, they are
too frightened to do so, or know they can't answer them; but if they do
address your arguments, you think it is because they are "threatened" by
them.
Another update! One of Acharya's crowd had this to say about this
article:
J P Holding, a Christian Auntie for agonized believers on the
web, thinks he is a bit of an intellectual and a wit. He writes a sort
of who-dunnit intending to show that the citation of Leo X is spurious,
but embarasses himself by getting to the exact source. Because it proves
to be a Christian source, the apologist has to resort to running down an
otherwise well regarded Christian.
"Running down"? Now that's a good one from the Hyper Pit. What's
the Acharya Nut mean by this? Well:
Bale was, like most sixteenth century Protestants outraged by
the corruption of Catholicism, and he wrote many critical and ironical
works to show the Catholic hierarchy for what they were. Particularly
outrageous was the Pope's selling of indulgences, and Holding actually
gives a further extract from Bale to show this, apparently wanting to
show Bale as extreme....
No, actually, not at all. Bale was "normal" when it comes to
objecting to indulgences. However, Nut shows his colors with the next
comment on the omens Bale describes (the wind and the keys of St. Pete,
etc.):
Holding seems to think that Bale's mention of bizarre
prognostications, shows he is unhistorical, a strange attitude for a man
to take who believes in the bizarre events readily accepted by
Christians in their bible. The prognostications do not seem half as
strange as those that Holding believes with no sweat at all.
Actually, no again. That Bale wrote this as a satire -- which
Happe identifies as Bale's genre -- is what shows it is "unhistorical".
It was never meant as a history. I inserted the part about the omens to
ask Skeptics if THEY were willing to take the matter as historical and
Bale's intent as such. If they want the fable quote to be historical,
what of this? I would have no problem accepting Bale's report of
supernaturalism, prima facie -- if this were actually a document of
historical intent -- but it isn't. Chalk another up for Acharya's fans
who can't or don't read well.
The Nut closes, "If Holding is right in making Bale into a liar,
then he is illustrating Christian dishonesty." No more a liar than Monty
Python, actually, so take that one to the cracker box and crumble it.
"If Bale was indeed a liar and his alleged quotation of Leo X was false,
then why was it remembered for so long?" It wasn't. The "fable" quote
was revived by Robert Taylor, the jailhouse lunatic who confused an
Isaac Watts hymn with one for Prometheus, and Wheless followed Taylor
uncritically (McCabe did not, however) and gave uncritical Skeptics
their grist. The quote was not remembered at all out of care or concern.
Contrast: If the quote was true, why was it's context so quickly forgotten?
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