January 4th 09, 06:51 AM
((Dr. Revilo P.Oliver's writing is so good I just had to post this
again. Bret.))
Christianity – Religion of the West
Revilo P. Oliver
Late Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana
>>"You, who are now reading these lines, and I are strangers. I have no means of knowing whether you are a Christian or an atheist. That, however, will not matter, so long as we talk about facts and not wishes.
The observed and verifiable facts of the world about us are not
affected by religious faith or the lack of faith. Christians and
atheists must find themselves in perfect agreement when they affirm
that lead is more malleable than steel, that the earth is an oblate
spheroid rotating on its axis, that whales are mammals, that Germany
was defeated and devastated by the many nations allied against her in
1945, and that the Chinese are Mongolians.
About such matters there can be no dispute among Western men, who
instinctively accept the reality of the world about us and cannot
believe, as do many Orientals, that it is merely an illusion in the
mind of a dreamer.
If we would salvage and restore our civilization – the Occidental
culture that is peculiarly our own and that now seems to be
disintegrating and rotting before our very eyes – we must do so as
Western men, by observing reality objectively and by reasoning from it
dispassionately. And when we try to compute what resources remain to
us, we need first of all to determine the actual strength of the
Christian tradition at the present time. "<<
http://www.heretical.com/miscella/oliver1.html
again. Bret.))
Christianity – Religion of the West
Revilo P. Oliver
Late Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana
>>"You, who are now reading these lines, and I are strangers. I have no means of knowing whether you are a Christian or an atheist. That, however, will not matter, so long as we talk about facts and not wishes.
The observed and verifiable facts of the world about us are not
affected by religious faith or the lack of faith. Christians and
atheists must find themselves in perfect agreement when they affirm
that lead is more malleable than steel, that the earth is an oblate
spheroid rotating on its axis, that whales are mammals, that Germany
was defeated and devastated by the many nations allied against her in
1945, and that the Chinese are Mongolians.
About such matters there can be no dispute among Western men, who
instinctively accept the reality of the world about us and cannot
believe, as do many Orientals, that it is merely an illusion in the
mind of a dreamer.
If we would salvage and restore our civilization – the Occidental
culture that is peculiarly our own and that now seems to be
disintegrating and rotting before our very eyes – we must do so as
Western men, by observing reality objectively and by reasoning from it
dispassionately. And when we try to compute what resources remain to
us, we need first of all to determine the actual strength of the
Christian tradition at the present time. "<<
http://www.heretical.com/miscella/oliver1.html