It is a subtlety that God learned Greek when he wanted to become a writer, and also that he did not learn it well.
Es ist eine Feinheit, daß Gott griechisch lernte, als er Schriftsteller werden wollte, und ebenso dies, daß er es nicht besser lernte!
--Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), in Nietzche Werke, book VII (posthumous fragments, 1882-1884), no. 445.
...a witch-haunted bog, memorable for having nearly swallowed up David Hume the historian, who was a native of Ninewells, in the neighbourhood. Hume missed his footing in the mire, and sticking fast, called for assistance, and was at last heard by some people, who ran to give help. Seeing, however, that it was Hume "the unbeliever," they turned back from the amiable philosopher, remarking, "Na, na, the deil has him, let the deil keep him." Mr Somerville mentions, that Hume got out of the bog, and wrote his history afterwards, but does not relate the means by which the philosopher and historian escaped an absorption of his body, analogous of the absorption his mind had undergone in metaphysical mier. The "deil" would have had him both ways, the story goes, but for a compassonate milkmaid, who helped him out, after compelling him to say the Lord's prayer, as a proof that he was a true Christian.
--From a review of The Autobiography of a Working Man (by Alexander Somerville, pub. 1848) in The Eclectic Review (pub. 1848) by Thomas Price and Edwin Paxton Hood
Quaker Mary Dyer led to execution on Boston Common, 1660
In the Year of Our Lord 1682
To ye aged and beloved, Mr. John Higginson [1616-1708]:
There be now at sea a ship called Welcome, which has on board 100 or more of the heretics and malignants called Quakers, with W. Penn, who is the chief scamp, at the head of them. The General Court has accordingly given sacred orders to Master Malachi Huscott, of the brig Porpoise, to waylay the said Welcome slyly as near the Cape of Cop as may be, and make captive the said Penn and his ungodly crew, so that the Lord may be glorified and not mocked on the soil of this new country with the heathen worship of these people. Much spoil can be made of selling the whole lot to Barbadoes, where slaves fetch good prices in rum and sugar and we shall not only do the Lord great good by punishing the wicked, but we shall make great good for His Minister and people.
Yours in the bowels of Christ,
Cotton Mather [1663-1728]
--Quoted in a footnote by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces . "Reprinted by Professor Robert Phillips, American Government and Its Problems, Houghton Mifflin, 1941, and by Dr. Karl Menninger, Love Against Hate, Harcourt , Brace and Company, 1942, p. 211"
Monsieur once made me laugh so much. He always brought a much be-medalled rosary to bed with him, and before he went to sleep he told his beads. When that was over I heard a great rattling of medals, as though he was moving them about under the blanket. I said, "Dieu me le pardonne, mais je soupçonne que vous faites promener vos reliques et images de la Vierge dans un pays qui lui est inconnu." ["God forgive me, but I suspect you are making your relics and images of the Virgin go into a country that is unknown to them."] Monsieur answered, "Taisez-vous, dormez, vous ne savez [ce] que vous dites." ["Be quiet, go to sleep, you don't know what you're talking about."] I got up quietly, put the nightlight so that it shone into the bed, took hold of Monsieur's arm, laughed and said, "Pour le coup, vous ne sauriez plus me nier." ["I knew it, you can't deny it any more."] He laughed as well. "Vous qui avez été Hugenotte, vous ne saviez pas le pouvoir des reliques et des images de la Sainte Vierge," he said. "Elles guarantissent de tout mal les parties qu'on en frotte." ["You used to be Protestant, you wouldn't know about the power of relics and images of the Virgin. They keep from all evil the parts that you rub against them."] I replied, "Je vous demande pardon, Monsieur, mais vous ne me persuadez point que c'est honorer la Vierge que de promener son image sur les parties destinées à ôter la virginité." ["I ask your pardon, sir, but you will scarcely persuade me that you honor the Virgin by promenading her image on parts destined to take away virginity."] Monsieur had to laugh, and said, "Je vous prie, ne le dites à personne." ["I beg you, don't tell anyone."]
--Letter from Liselotte von der Pfalz (1652-1722), German sister-in-law of Louis XIV, Saint-Cloud, 18 October 1720. Her husband Philippe, duc d'Orléans, called simply "Monsieur" at court, was homosexual. They had three children, including the desired heir. From Letters From Liselotte, translated by Maria Kroll.
Romney admitted that his favorite novel is Battleship Earth, written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
--"The Harvard 100: The Most Influential Alumni" in 02138, a magazine about Harvard
China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnation without government permission. The Tibetan parliament-in-exile passed a resolution denouncing the new order. Sounds like the Onion.
Learn to think for a long time how to change the world.
--Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god. Quoted by Mary Pipher (1947-), Writing to Change the World (2006)
If you are not electing Christians...you are going to legislate sin.
--Representative Katherine Harris, Republican of Florida, in an interview with a Baptist newspaper. (Yes, that Katherine Harris.)
Lesson in politics and God:
This belt buckle was part of the uniform of German soldiers in World War II. It says, "God with us." (As it says in the Koran*, "God knows, but you do not know.")
Little Mermaid wears hijab
The country where "sex" is searched for most often on Google is Pakistan. Also in the top ten: Egypt, Iran, Morocco, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
*That's all they think about.
Who remembers now...that the Statue of Liberty was initially conceived by her French sculptor as an Eqyptian peasant girl, intended to adorn the entrance to the Suez Canal? Or that the first Zionists to settle in Palestine were in fact American Protestants, who planted successive, ill-fated colonies aimed at "restoring" the Holy Land to Jews, so that their subsequent conversion to Christianity would speed the Second Coming?
--Max Rodenbeck reviewing Michael Oren's book Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present in the International Herald Tribune, 27-28 January 2007
