From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sat Aug 10 2002 - 03:10:14 MDT
mike99 wrote:
> Since we're dealing here with relative benefits of different religious
> beliefs, I would urge not being too hard on the Calvinists. Though Calvin's
> theology was rigid and severe, it also had the benefits of commending hard
> work, capitalism (including lending money at interest) and most important of
> all, the rational and scientific investigation of the natural world.
> Catholicism (the religion in which I was raised) got all of these wrong
> until recent times.
>
>
I release it is a bit off-subject but please support these
statements on or off-line. I see no way that a belief structure
that claims your ultimate fate is utterly outside your control
would be conducive to any sort of extra efforts. I certainly
don't see how it is conducive to can in any way claim to have a
direct benefit on promoting science and technology. The
enlightenment promoting naturalism, reason and freedom did not
arise from Calvinism. If you read the documents of the time of
America's founding and a few decades thereafter you will not
that many of the founders were at most Deist, if not atheists.
You will also note that many Calvinist and other Protestant
churches were utterly in arms over some of the general tenets of
the founders and over the idea of a secular state.
- samantha
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