Monday, January 24, 2011

The Deliberate Efforts of the Religious to Undermine the Marketplace of Ideas II

The Freedom From Religion Foundation's Freethought of the day for today includes a great quotation  that describes some of the ways in which religion has, over centuries, sought to manipulate the marketplace of ideas and impede it's function:

“The merits and services of Christianity have been industriously extolled by its hired advocates.  Every Sunday its praises are sounded from myriads of pulpits.  It enjoys the prestige of an ancient establishment and the comprehensive support of the State.  It has the ear of rulers and the control of education.  Every generation is suborned in its favor.  Those who dissent from it are losers, those who oppose it are ostracised; while in the past, for century after century, it has replied to criticism with imprisonment, and to scepticism with the dungeon and the stake.  By such means it has induced a general tendency to allow its pretensions without inquiry and its beneficence without proof. ”
— Preface, Crimes of Christianity, by G.W. Foote and J.M. Wheeler

This book, Crimes of Christianity, was published in in 1887, providing further evidence that the lies and evil nature of religion were long know before any of us were born,  yet still it persists.  Why?  Because of its deliberate manipulation of the marketplace of ideas and the minds of children, as I have pointed out before.

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