*rant* I was discussing in Alis status, which made me read Helen Gardener again, whom I adore so much. She wrote these back in the 80s: Every religion must be tried at the bar of human justice, and stand or fall by the verdict there. It has no right to crouch behind the theory of inspiration and demand immunity from criticism; and yet that is just what every one of them does. They all claim that we have no right to use our reason on their inventions. But evil cannot be made good by revelation, and good cannot be made evil by persecution. Whenever a superstition claims to be so holy that you must not use your reason about it, there is something wrong some place. Truth is not afraid of reason, nor reason of truth. And those are from just the first few pages of her lectures, among infinite other great succinctly put points, which is relevant to this date. In my view, she was way, way ahead of her time, and ought to be revered as one of the great freethinkers of all time, and deserves all the fame she can get. I looked her up seeing some quote and happened to find her lectures (sometime back) and her lectures were jaw droppingly profound. So yeah, tl;dr, she was a freethinker before it was cool Reminds me now and again how deep misogyny runs. Seriously, just read a chapter or two from her lectures, and tell me that she doesnt deserve to be called as one of the great freethinkers of all time, and wasnt way way ahead of her time. Its so great and profound. Yet shes barely known, Ive barely seen people quote her at all. Seriously am I the one whos only frustrated with this? *end rant*
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 03:50:10 +0000