hi loretta and pierdut. you may have both read the following excerpt from ray's lof series, but it is worth re-reading what ray included in his essay. helps in understanding how the church has used fear for so many, many years.
claudia
*The Jews borrowed from the Pagans the doctrine of transmigration [reincarnation], with all its accompaniments of future retribution, and ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. And they abundantly justify the statement of Enfield, that 'the purity of the divine doctrine was corrupted among the Jews in Egypt, who, under the disguise of allegory, admitted doctrines NEVER DREAMED OF BY THEIR LAWGIVER [God through Moses] and prophets; and adopted a mystical interpretation of the law, which converted its plain meaning into a thousand IDLE FANCIES" (Doctrine of Eternal Punishment by Dr. Thomas B. Thayer. CAPS are mine).
*"Egypt has been called the 'Mother of Superstitions,' and her whole religious history shows the propriety of the appellation [her doctrines are provable superstitions]. Greeks and Romans, Lawgivers and Philosophers, acknowledge their indebtedness to her in this respect, and freely credit her with THE ORIGINAL INVENTION OF THE FABLES AND TERRORS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD....", (Thayer, Chapt. 3, p. 4).
"It is plain enough, from their united testimony [that of the Greek writers, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, and others] , that the whole matter of judgment after death, the rewards of a good life, and the punishments of a bad life, with all the formal solemnities of trial and condemnation, ORIGINATED AND WAS PERFECTED AMONG THE EGYPTIANS, according to the peculiar character of the mythology. From them IT WAS BORROWED BY THE GREEKS, who made such change and additions as fitted the system to the genius and circumstances of that people." (Thayer, Chapt. 3, p. 4).
*"Since the multitude is ever fickle, full of lawless desires, irrational passions and violence, there is no other way to keep them in order but by the fear and terror of the invisible world; on which account out ancestors seem to me to have acted judiciously, when they CONTRIVED TO BRING INTO THE POPULAR BELIEF THESE NOTIONS OF THE GODS, AND OF THE INTERNAL REGIONS." (Polybius, B. vi 56).
*"The multitude are restrained from vice by the punishments the gods are said to inflict upon offenders, and by those terrors and threatenings which certain dreadful words and monstrous forms imprint upon their minds...For it is impossible to govern the crowd of women, and the common rabble, by philosophical reasoning, and lead them to piety, holiness and virtue � but this must be done by SUPERSTITION, OR THE FEAR of the gods, by means of fables and wonders; for the thunder, the aegis, the trident, the torches (of the Furies), the dragons, etc., are ALL FABLES as is also ALL ANCIENT THEOLOGY. These things the legislators used as scarecrows to terrify the childish multitudes." (Strabo, Geography, B. I).
*"For as we sometimes cure the body with unwholesome remedies, when such as are most wholesome produce no effect, so we restrain those minds with FALSE RELATIONS, which will not be persuaded by the truth. There is necessity, therefore, of instilling the dread of those foreign torments....[the word 'foreign' usually implied Egyptian]" (Timaeus Locrus, the Pythagorean).
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Topic: 10 YEAR OLD BIBLE PREACHER PREACHES ON EVANGELISM (Read 5510 times)