Toxic Multiculti: Pt. 3

[Razgovory]

He was raised Catholic and never actually left the Church.  I think his son became a Priest.  He did stop attending mass after the war, but that doesn't necessarily mean he was a non-believer.

If you are a Catholic believer why would you stop attending mass?  Isn't that kind of important if you believe?

But I could have sworn I heard he stopped believing during the war but I could be wrong.  Did Sherman write any memoirs?  I guess even if he did he would not have mentioned that sort of thing.

To busy?  Less interested in ritual?  There are lots of reasons.  Reagan was considered a Christian but rarely went to church.

[Viking]

Sherman's son was a priest and his wife continued to attend mass, which Sherman stopped going to.

Even Washington managed to accompany his wife Martha to Episcopalian Service, but refused to take communion.


Basically Sherman was a self declared devout catholic who attended mass regularly. After the war he stopped both claiming to be catholic and attending mass. Raz demands proof that he was a Dawkinsite atheists before he will accept anything. Sherman certainly rejected religion meaning he was at most a deist. Lincoln (in his letters) and Gran (in his autobiography - which I highly reccomend as a read) both consider the problem of evil and insists that the evil seen at war is not consistent with a good god. Sherman did not write an autobiography, iirc he rejected many offers for him to do so; Grant only wrote his because he was bankrupt and wanted to provide for his family. The high water mark of American Atheism is the period including the careers of Robert Ingersol Green (a civil war vet) and Samuel Clemens (a confederate volunteer that disbanded at the first opportunity and then worked on riverboats).

Sherman was as Atheist as a man can be in a world without an explanation for biological diversity and a first cause. If he didn't self-declare as a deist or atheist, he certainly lived as one.

In an aside, while doing research for this post I found out that the first American President who may have actually belived that Jesus was divine was Andrew Jackson. Though Washington can be argued to belong to the Episcopal Church, though his relation to that church after the war seems to mirror Darwin's relation to the same church after the death of his daughter. Note regarding Washington, his local Episcopal Priest thought that Washington was a Deist.

[Razgovory]

Sherman did write a memoir.

  You are projecting your religious beliefs (or lack their of) on others.  For instance Lincoln is thought to have become more religious rather then less during the war.  I don't attend mass very often.  Does that mean I'm an atheist?  I liked it when you suggested that St. Augustine of Hippo may have been Athiest.   You're a kook on this subject.  A bigot who can't accept that intelligent men can believe in God.  So they have to always be crypto-Athiests. 

[Viking]

Sherman did write a memoir.

  You are projecting your religious beliefs (or lack their of) on others.  For instance Lincoln is thought to have become more religious rather then less during the war.  I don't attend mass very often.  Does that mean I'm an atheist?  I liked it when you suggested that St. Augustine of Hippo may have been Athiest.   You're a kook on this subject.  A bigot who can't accept that intelligent men can believe in God.  So they have to always be crypto-Athiests.

No you are presuming religious belief on people without taking any regard to their behaviour. Your lies about Lincoln and his are just as convincing as the Fox News trope "some people say..."

My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.
-- Abraham Lincoln, to Judge J S Wakefield, after Willie Lincoln's death (Willie died in 1862)

Lincoln never belonged to a church. He too (like Washington and Darwin) had a religious wife who claimed he was not a christian but claimed he was religious. Augustine was an Atheist, when cavorting with concubines, he later became a Mithraist and later converting to Christianity. The source for this is Augustine's own autobiography.

Regarding Sherman, publishing one's letters is not the same thing as writing a memoir, regardless of what his publisher called it. You did ask for documentation

Thomas C. Fletcher, in Life and Reminiscences of General Wm. T. Sherman by Distinguished Men of His Time (1891) reports that Sherman's son Thomas, a Catholic priest, claimed, ""My father was baptized in the Catholic Church, married in the Catholic Church, and attended the Catholic Church until the outbreak of the civil war. Since that time he has not been a communicant of any church . . . ."

[Razgovory]

"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it."  -Abraham Lincoln April 1864.  It would seem he had a crisis of faith and over came it.

http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-General-Sherman-Library-America/dp/0940450658  Here, you can buy Sherman's memoirs right here.  I've seen it in the bookstore.  It was like two volumes and is not just his letters, (though some of his letters are there).  He actually wrote this book.  He had it published.  It is an autobiography.

Your documentation does not actually prove what you were claiming that he was an atheist.  There were vocal atheists in his time, so claiming He was as close to an atheist as his time permitted is bullshit.

You simply can't stand that intelligent people can be religious can you?  You know what Viking?  There were people who are smarter then you who were religious.  There are living now people who are smarter then you who are religious.  And when you are dead there will be people smarter then you were who will be religious.  Being an atheist doesn't make you any smarter or less intelligent then not being one.   I would even say that there are religious people who are in fact more rational then you.  Your hatred often blinds you to reason and causes you to say absurd things.

[Viking]

"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it."  -Abraham Lincoln April 1864.  It would seem he had a crisis of faith and over came it.

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/hodges.htm

The link to where your otherwise unsourced quote came from. He was trying to convince some kentucky notables protesting the arming of black men that they should premit it and argued that circumstance. But, to counter your quote with one of my own...

The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession.
-- Abraham Lincoln, quoted by Joseph Lewis in "Lincoln the Freethinker"

or even two.. just in case you think he was moving towards religion...

My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.
-- Abraham Lincoln, to Judge J S Wakefield, after Willie Lincoln's death (Willie died in 1862)

He was at worst a Deist, he was certainly not a Christian.

http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-General-Sherman-Library-America/dp/0940450658  Here, you can buy Sherman's memoirs right here.  I've seen it in the bookstore.  It was like two volumes and is not just his letters, (though some of his letters are there).  He actually wrote this book.  He had it published.  It is an autobiography.

Your documentation does not actually prove what you were claiming that he was an atheist.  There were vocal atheists in his time, so claiming He was as close to an atheist as his time permitted is bullshit.

You simply can't stand that intelligent people can be religious can you?  You know what Viking?  There were people who are smarter then you who were religious.  There are living now people who are smarter then you who are religious.  And when you are dead there will be people smarter then you were who will be religious.  Being an atheist doesn't make you any smarter or less intelligent then not being one.   I would even say that there are religious people who are in fact more rational then you.  Your hatred often blinds you to reason and causes you to say absurd things.

The fulle memoir is here

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/sherman/memoirs/general-sherman-memoirs.htm

It's a report of events. Basically a reprint of his battle reports and relevant letters with brief commentary. Nothing about his thoughts unless expressed in these letters and they are deliciously free of religious references of the kind you cite as proof of Abe's religion. Sherman walks like an atheist, floats like an atheist and quacks like one as well.

If I cared what you thought I would be personally offended by your insistence on your ability to read my mind and to tell me about my own conclusions, especially the ones I decline to voice. I know telling you this will not affect any of the delusions you have, but for the record.

- I prefer my religious people to be intelligent. In fact I prefer intelligent religious people over stupid ones. If people keep their beliefs to themselves and don't make any decisions affecting me based on their supernatural assumptions I'm perfectly happy to let them be.
- Smartness is not at issue here. In fact I am of the opinion that it takes a lot of intelligence to reflect over your unfounded supernatural presumptions and convince yourself that they are positively true. You are making an untrue and unfounded assumption that I think religious people are stupid or that being religious makes you stupid. In that you are wrong. Religious people are no less and no more intelligent than the non-religious. Don't put words in my mouth, it just reminds me that you are ... stupid.
-"There are living now [sic] people who are smarter then [sic] you who are religious." There are living now people who are better at grammar and spelling then you who are atheists.

Now you reference to hate here is especially odious to me since you claim I hold certain views which I do not hold and then you claim that holding such views makes me a bigot. Now I'm not the one so full of rage that he can't spell or do grammar and I'm not the one accusing the other of bigotry. You repeat this trope about how I hate religious people and think they are stupid. I don't hate them and I don't think they are stupid; I just think they are wrong about the nature of the world and I think they have no moral right to insist that I respect their wrongness and I think that if anybody wants to use supernatural justifications for anything I will expect some form of proof that these supernatural sources for these justifications exist.

I expect you to apologize for calling me a bigot and retract your statement that you claim that I think religious people are stupid.

[Razgovory]

No.  I am not going to apologize.  I recognize bigotry when I see.  It's clouding your judgement.  I should point out that deism is not atheism.  No matter how much someone who writes about "Lincoln the free thinker". wants it to be.  Sorry my grammar is not up to par.  Must be my tribal superstition keeping me back.

[Viking]

No.  I am not going to apologize.  I recognize bigotry when I see.  It's clouding your judgement.  I should point out that deism is not atheism.  No matter how much someone who writes about "Lincoln the free thinker". wants it to be.  Sorry my grammar is not up to par.  Must be my tribal superstition keeping me back.

You lie about me, use that lie to justify calling me a bigot and then refuse to retract or apologize for that.

Fuck you.

[Razgovory]

What is my lie?

[dps]

Lincoln was certainly a freethinker when it came to religion, and certainly wasn't a conventional Christian.  It's also pretty darn clear that he wasn't an atheist, either.

[Razgovory]

I dislike the term "free thinker".

[dps]

I dislike the term "free thinker".

Well, all too often, it is used to mean, "someone with unconventional views that happen to agree with mine", so yeah, it's often a misleading term.  In the mid-19th century, though, it seems to have been used for pretty much anyone who didn't hold conventional Christian views on theology and morals.  No doubt that many of those to whom the term was applied were, as you put it, "crypto-atheists", but most probably weren't.  A lot of them were probably Deists (who were often accused of atheism, but weren't atheists);  others may have held dualistic views, or been pan-theistic.

[Neil]

How does that contradict what Razgovory said?

Just the fact that Raz said it means that it's incorrect.

[Eddie Teach]

To busy?  Less interested in ritual?  There are lots of reasons.  Reagan was considered a Christian but rarely went to church.

It served his purposes to be considered a Christian. I doubt he felt any conviction in it.

[Razgovory]

I dislike the term "free thinker".

Well, all too often, it is used to mean, "someone with unconventional views that happen to agree with mine", so yeah, it's often a misleading term.  In the mid-19th century, though, it seems to have been used for pretty much anyone who didn't hold conventional Christian views on theology and morals.  No doubt that many of those to whom the term was applied were, as you put it, "crypto-atheists", but most probably weren't.  A lot of them were probably Deists (who were often accused of atheism, but weren't atheists);  others may have held dualistic views, or been pan-theistic.

I think a lot of people were (and are), irreligious.  Religion simply didn't play part a large role in their life.  That is not the same as Atheism.  You can be an irreligious atheist, agnostic or believer.  Just saying that someone didn't go to church = Athiest is absurd.

I dislike the term "Freethinker" because it creates a false dichotomy.  The person's thoughts are somehow "freer" then others.