Be flat out amazed. A 16th century Catholic on the misuses of religion

His remarks fit to a tee the situation unfolding in Florida.


In 1580 Montaigne, a devout Catholic wrote:

"I see that we willing accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions. There is no hostility that excels Christian hostility. Our zeal does wonders when it is seconding our leaning toward hatred, cruelty, ambition, avarice, detraction, rebellion.

Against the grain, toward goodness, benignity, moderation, unless as by a miracle some rare nature bears it, it will neither walk or fly.

Our religion is made to abolish vices; it covers them, fosters them, excites them.


From Apology for Raymond Sebond, France 1580

thanks for the timely research

cable so I've been reading. I've had a copy of his Essays for longest time and I just got the urge to read it. He is an amazing man. You could easily think he wrote his essays the previous day. I opened the book to a page with the following passage which I can identify with completely.

"When I pick up books, I will have precieved in such-and-such a book a passage surpassing all charms which will have struck my soul; let me at it another time, in vain I turn it over and over, in vain I twist it and manipulate it, to me it is a shapeless and unrecognizable mass."

to the St. Bart Massacre?

Sebond argued that man could understand God through study of the natural world. Montaigne who at this time of his life embraced a radical skepticism argued against Sebond's position. Montaigne believed that there were serious limits on man's ability to reason.


Montaigne thinking changed over time to a point where he questioned all the convictions of his time. He came to believe that self-knowledge was the only certainty which man can rely upon. "For though we can become learned through another man's knowledge we can never be wise except by our own wisdom."


{b]“Montaigne helps us answer this one question: ‘How to stay free? How to preserve our inborn clear-mindedness in front of all the threats and dangers fanaticismism, how to preserve the humanity of our hearts among the upsurge of bestiality?’”

http://www.shef.ac.uk/~ptpdlp/essays/eberts2.html