IUBio

brain sizes: Einstein's and women's

John Knight jwknight at polbox.com
Fri Sep 13 14:34:25 EST 2002


I'm sitting here reading this letter from Mr. Jefferson from almost two
centuries ago, and lookit what I see:

"In our village of Charlottesville, there is a good degree of religion, with
a small spice only of fanaticism. We have four sects, but without either
church or meeting-house. The court-house is the common temple, one Sunday in
the month to each. Here, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Methodist and
Baptist, meet together, join in hymning their Maker, listen with attention
and devotion to each others' preachers, and all mix in society with perfect
harmony."

What a HOOT!!

Was Mr. Jefferson not aware that Sandra Day O'Connor, Ginsberg, and the ACLU
would frown upon such a vile use of "public property"!?

The COURT-HOUSE, no less. Exactly who does Mr. Jefferson think he is!

Could it be that he didn't understand the term "free exercise [of
religion]"?

Didn't he know that there was possibly a jew somewhere in Albemarle County,
hiding in his closet, simply because Mr. Jefferson was so insensitive to the
needs of poow wittle jews?

"Perfect harmony"? How TRAGIC! Why should Christians have fun when 6 million
non-existent jews were going fry in a holocaust in less than two centuries?
Didn't he realize that Christians shouldn't engage in "perfect harmony" as
long as there's one jew who may be suffering?

John Knight



ps--my bet is that if some STUPID jew had made just ONE of the complaints
that we now hear hourly from the jews, he would have had the cavalry on
their as. so fast they wouldn't have had time to say "geronimo".




RELIGION AND THE UNIVERSITY
To Dr. Thomas Cooper
Monticello, November 2, 1822
1822110
DEAR SIR, -- Your favor of October the 18th came to hand yesterday. The
atmosphere of our country is unquestionably charged with a threatening cloud
of fanaticism, lighter in some parts, denser in others, but too heavy in
all. I had no idea, however, that in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration
and freedom of religion, it could have arisen to the height you describe.
This must be owing to the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy and
absurdity of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending
them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to
denunciation.



In Boston, however, and its neighborhood, Unitarianism has advanced to so
great strength, as now to humble this haughtiest of all religious sects;
insomuch that they condescend to interchange with them and the other sects,
the civilities of preaching freely and frequently in each others'
meeting-houses. In Rhode Island, on the other hand, no sectarian preacher
will permit an Unitarian to pollute his desk. In our Richmond there is much
fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and
praying parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a
hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus, in
terms as amatory and carnal, as their modesty would permit them to use to a
mere earthly lover.

In our village of Charlottesville, there is a good degree of religion, with
a small spice only of fanaticism. We have four sects, but without either
church or meeting-house. The court-house is the common temple, one Sunday in
the month to each. Here, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Methodist and
Baptist, meet together, join in hymning their Maker, listen with attention
and devotion to each others' preachers, and all mix in society with perfect
harmony.

It is not so in the districts where Presbyterianism prevails undividedly.
Their ambition and tyranny would tolerate no rival if they had power.
Systematical in grasping at an ascendency over all other sects, they aim,
like the Jesuits, at engrossing the education of the country, are hostile to
every institution which they do not direct, and jealous at seeing others
begin to attend at all to that object. The diffusion of instruction, to
which there is now so growing an attention, will be the remote remedy to
this fever of fanaticism; while the more proximate one will be the progress
of Unitarianism.

That this will, ere long, be the religion of the majority from north to
south, I have no doubt.

In our university you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle
has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution,
not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at
the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might
silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to
the institution. In our annual report to the legislature, after stating the
constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any religious
instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the different
religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own
tenets, on the confines of the university, so near as that their students
may attend the lectures there, and have the free use of our library, and
every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their
independence of us and of each other. This fills the chasm objected to ours,
as a defect in an institution professing to give instruction in all useful
sciences. I think the invitation will be accepted, by some sects from candid
intentions, and by others from jealousy and rivalship. And by bringing the
sects together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall
soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and
make the general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality.

The time of opening our university is still as uncertain as ever. All the
pavilions, boarding houses, and dormitories are done. Nothing is now wanting
but the central building for a library and other general purposes. For this
we have no funds, and the last legislature refused all aid. We have better
hopes of the next. But all is uncertain. I have heard with regret of
disturbances on the part of the students in your seminary. The article of
discipline is the most difficult in American education. Premature ideas of
independence, too little repressed by parents, beget a spirit of
insubordination, which is the great obstacle to science with us, and a
principal cause of its decay since the revolution. I look to it with dismay
in our institution, as a breaker ahead, which I am far from being confident
we shall be able to weather. The advance of age, and tardy pace of the
public patronage, may probably spare me the pain of witnessing consequences.

I salute you with constant friendship and respect.









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