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Truth. |
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Act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only. - Immanuel Kant |
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"Partly on his interest being focussed on what he calls, 'the soul,' which he persists in regarding as an entity independent of the physical environment, whereas, as I tried to point out to him..though I must admit, that I agree with the Savage in finding civilized infantility too easy, or as he put it, not expensive enough.." - Bernard, Brave New World. Aldous Huxley. |
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"In its extreme inhumanity this doctrine must have above all have had one consequence for the life of a generation which surrendered to its magnificent consistency. That was a feeling of unprecedented inner loneliness of the single individual. In what was for the man of the age of the Reformation the most important thing in his life, his eternal salvation, he was forced to follow his path alone to meet a destiny which had been decreed for him from eternity. No one could help him. No priest, for the chosen one can understand theword of God only in his own heart. No sacraments, for though the sacraments had been ordained by God for the increase of His glory, and must hence be scrupulously observed, they are not a means to the attainment of grace, but only the subjective externa subsidia of faith. No Church, for though it was held that extra ecclesiam nulla salus in the sense that whoever kept away from the true Church could never belong to God's chosen band, nevertheless the membership of the external Church included the doomed. They should belong to it and be subjected to its discipline, not in order thus to attain salvation, that is impossible, but because, for the glory of God, they too must be forced to obey His commandments. Finally, even no God. For even Christ had died only for the elect, for whose benefit God had decreed His martyrdom from eternity. This, the complete elimination of salvation through the Church and the sacraments (which was in Lutheranism by no means developed to its final conclusions), was what formed the absolutely decisive difference from Catholicism." The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber. |
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"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight." The Screwtape Letters. C. S. Lewis. |
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"Uninhibited sex practices, greediness, and violence permeate contemporary life in a strange coexistence with spectacular achievements in science and technology. We build pyramids taller than those of ancient Egypt and create Towers of Babel that reach higher than the sky." Antisocial Behavior, Benjamin Wolman |
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"So if Protestantism concedes a greater freedom to individual thought than Catholicism, it is because it has fewer common beliefs and practices. Now, a religious society cannot exist without a collective credo and the more extensive the credo the more the unified and strong is the society. For it does not unite men by an exchange and reciprocity of services, a temporal bond of union which permits and even presupposes differences, but which a religious society cannot form. It socializes men only by attaching them completely to an identical body of doctrine and socializes them in proportion as this body of doctrine is extensive and firm. The more numerous the manners of action and thought of a religious character are, which are accordingly removed from free inquiry, the more the idea of God presents itself in all details of existence, and makes individual wills converge to one identical goal. Inversely, the greater the concessions of a confessional group makes to individual judgement, the less it dominates lives, the less its cohesion and vitality. We thus reach the conclusion that the superiority of Protestantism with respect to suicide results from its being a less strongly integrated church than the Catholic church." Suicide, Emile Durkheim. |
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