Badly Endowed By Nature
The practice of judging and condemning morally,
is the favorite revenge of the intellectually shallow
on those who are less so,
it is also a kind of indemnity
for their being badly endowed by nature,
and finally, it is an opportunity
for acquiring spirit and BECOMING subtle
–malice spiritualizes.
They are glad in their inmost heart
that there is a standard according to which
those who are over-endowed
with intellectual goods and privileges,
are equal to them,
they contend
for the “equality of all before God,”
and almost NEED
the belief in God for this purpose.
It is among them that
the most powerful antagonists of atheism are found.
Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Helen Zimmern, aphorism 219
A circle of friends discussed a YouTube American history lecture by David Barton.
The lecture ostensibly revealed elements of the founding of our nation which are overlooked, perhaps intentionally concealed in the course of public education. The “historian” summarized his conviction that nearly all the signers of the founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – were orthodox Christian believers.
Giving this “historian” the benefit of the doubt one has to wonder why he’d go to such trouble to cherry-pick sources in order to arrive at a conclusion that nearly no one well informed about the individuals who met at Philadelphia’s Constitution Hall would agree with. The majority certainly were not intellectually and existentially similar to 21st century evangelical Christians. Sans benefit of the doubt, Barton is a shill for American exceptionalism, a propaganda mill for the “faithful,” spinning a mashup of God n’ Country, end-times Triumphalism.
If you are interested in sampling Barton’s lecture for yourself CLICK HERE. To understand how Barton fits into the wider political alliance between Trump-Republicans and Evangelicals, Politico had this to say.
