There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.
Interpretation
Jefferson criticizes Christianity for causing foolishness and hypocrisy among people.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson expresses his disdain for Christianity, arguing that it lacks any redeeming qualities. He suggests that the religion leads to the foolishness of one group of people while making another group hypocritical, reflecting a deep-seated skepticism about religious belief and its impact on society. Jeffersonβs words indicate a belief that superstition, as he perceives it, does more harm than good, influencing human behavior negatively.
In practice
In a debate about the impact of religion on society.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
The practice is to make the non-arising of grasping and clinging absolute, final, and eternally void, so that no grasping and clinging can ever return. Just that is enough. There is nothing else to do.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
It is among men of genius and science that atheism alone is found.
(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.
He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.
When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live not just by the day β but by the minute.
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