tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678437459606571237.post7146697878537314701..comments2023-06-29T02:39:50.513-07:00Comments on Magis Theatre Company: Worship of False IdolsMagis Theatre Companyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00222858137440560364noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678437459606571237.post-46951730725433922882008-02-12T10:02:00.000-08:002008-02-12T10:02:00.000-08:00Quite true... my comments were not a critique of P...Quite true... my comments were not a critique of Paine; I would leave that to the Witlings themselves. It was merely a dovetailing of these thoughts to your own discussion. Since Smatter tends to take things out of context, I thought it was a fair bet that she might like that quip.Magis Theatre Companyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00222858137440560364noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678437459606571237.post-37508032956109981032008-02-12T09:59:00.000-08:002008-02-12T09:59:00.000-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Magis Theatre Companyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00222858137440560364noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678437459606571237.post-9394182808567022462008-02-11T11:33:00.000-08:002008-02-11T11:33:00.000-08:00George, I get your point about Smatter's "church o...George, I get your point about Smatter's "church of her own mind," although Paine does not seem to be saying that he would excommunicate anyone who disagrees with him. He says that others have a right to believe what they wish, and that each person must remain true to what they personally believe. I'm not sure that Paine is exactly laying out a creed, he seems to be more in the "deeds not creeds" vein of the Unitarians: "religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy." Paine sounds more like Censor than like Smatter to me. (But then, I am a Unitarian, and therefore perhaps biased....)<BR/>--ErikaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678437459606571237.post-10095148855237863692008-02-10T09:37:00.000-08:002008-02-10T09:37:00.000-08:00Very interesting and totally "in fashion" of the t...Very interesting and totally "in fashion" of the time. Notice Thomas Paine's work.<BR/>The following is from Wikipedia.<BR/>"The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology", a deistic treatise written by eighteenth-century British radical and American revolutionary Thomas Paine, critiques institutionalized religion and challenges the inerrancy of the Bible. Published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807, it was a bestseller in America, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. British audiences, however, fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French revolution, received it with more hostility.<BR/><BR/>At the beginning of Part I of the Age of Reason, Paine lays out his personal creed:<BR/><BR/>I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. <BR/>I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy. <BR/>But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them. <BR/>I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. <B>My own mind is my own church. </B><BR/>All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. <BR/>I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe<BR/><BR/>********<BR/><BR/>So Smatter, would... of course worship in no other church but the church of her "own mind."<BR/>It's very easy to excommunicate anyone who thinks differently than you are if you are your own Pope... or is it Swift? (bad pun)<BR/>-- GeorgeMagis Theatre Companyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00222858137440560364noreply@blogger.com