pharisaic
2. Hypocritically self-righteous and condemnatory
pharisaism
2. Hypocritical observance of the letter of religious or moral law without regard for the spirit; sanctimoniousness
American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd ed.
A note on the term "Pharisaism":
Though this term has come to have the definition quoted, the original Pharisees did not earn it. They were the party of bourgeois middle-class Judaism in the first century.
The "scribes" (minor officials and scholars) were generally Pharisees, and the writers of the Gospels often used these terms interchangeably to refer to anyone who objected to the radicalism of Jesus and his followers.
see for example Jesus the Magician by Smith, The Historical Figure of Jesus by Sanders
Paul was a Pharisee (Acts 23:6, Acts 26:5, Philippians 3:5) and Jesus himself may have been as well.
The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment
by Thaddeus Golas
Quoted here
My own feeling is that we should not
"go beyond" reason to love,
but that we most cultivate both.
Alfred North Whitehead, quoted here.
(Though I suppose this is true of the canonical texts of most other faiths as well.
With the possible exception of Zen, though they sometimes show examples
of human warmth, they are almost completely devoid of actual humor.)*
from Masonic Philosophy
by Joseph Fort Newton
(an excerpt from Builders : A Story
and Study of Freemasonry)
Rabia al-Adawiyya
quoted in
The Way of the Sufi by Idries Shah
"I was taught to judge and punish.Then I was taught to make war; that is, to resist evil men with murder, and the military caste, of which I was a member, was called the Christ-loving military, and their activity was sanctioned by a Christian blessing."
Complete Works of Count Tolstoy
by Leo Tolstoy 16:17
quoted in the Forward by Martin Green to
The Kingdom of God Is Within You
by Leo Tolstoy, Constance Garnett (Translator)
page ix
Voltaire
Philosophical Dictionary, "Tolerance"
"First sentence of second section of article;
this addition appeared in the 1765 edition."
Quoted here
Well, in the bad old days, the Hebrews were of course recorded to massacre their enemies wholesale,
even sometimes including children. And although it has been fashionable for the last few decades
to describe the premodern dar al-Islam as an unalloyed pax Islamica, this view is open to question.
Overall, I think we can justly say that all of the Abrahamic faiths have shown notable intolerance.
"... we must endure the authority of the prince. If he misuse or abuse his authority, we are not to entertain a grudge, seek revenge or punishment. Obedience is to be rendered for God's sake, for the ruler is God's representative. However they may tax or exact, we must obey and endure patiently.
Martin Luther
"Tribute to Caesar" sermon
from The Political Theories of Martin Luther, Luther Hess Waring (New York, Putnam's, 1910) p. 104
How the politicians must have loved that man.
Mere Christianity
by C. S. Lewis
page x
"You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be nice to them"
Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, January 14, 1991
quoted at Analysis for Bias
Denis Diderot, quoted here
"We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretensewhatsoever; this is our testimony to the whole world.... The Spirit of Christ, by which we are guided...would nevermove us to fight and war against any...with outward weapons, neither for the Kingdom of Christ nor the kingdoms of this world."
A Declaration from the Harmless
and Innocent People of God called Quakers,
presented to Charles II, 1660
"...they were very arrogant and selfish.
They saw that I knew them; theyknew that I was making the citizens acquainted with them;
they were the stronger; they took away my life: and people like them will always do as much,
if they can, to whoever does them too much justice.''
"But did you say nothing, do nothing, that could serve them as a pretext?"
"To the wicked, everything serves as pretext."
from the entry RELIGION, in the
Philosophical Dictionary of Voltaire
Rev. Bob Moorehead, Overlake Christian Church
quoted in "Church is a vision to behold" by Sally Macdonald
Seattle Times, Friday, Nov. 28, 1997
"The purpose of Freemasonry is to enable men to meet in harmony, to promote friendship, and to be charitable. Its basic ideals are that all persons are the children of one God, that all persons are related to each other, and that the best way to worship God is to be of service to people.
...the views of the Masonic religion (sic) are in open conflict with Biblical Christianity, so much so that, in our opinion, a knowledgeable and committed Mason could not possibly be a true Christian. "
Please see the disclaimer
"As I travel the country speaking out against war, injustice and nuclear weapons, I see many people consciously siding with the culture of war, choosing the path of violence, supporting corporate greed, rampant militarism, and global domination. I see many others swept up in the raging current of patriotism. Since most of these people, beginning with the president, claim to be Christian, I am ashamed and appalled that they support war and systemic injustice, that they do it in the name of God, and that they feign fidelity to the nonviolent Jesus who gave his life resisting institutionalized injustice. ...Whoa! Them's fightin' words!
I used to think these all-American Christians never read the Gospel, that they simply chose not to be authentic disciples of the nonviolent Jesus. Now, alas, I think they have indeed chosen discipleship, but not to the hero of the Gospels, Jesus. Instead, through their actions, they have become disciples of the devout, religious, all-powerful, murderous Pharisees who killed him.
We have become a culture of Pharisees. Instead of practicing an authentic spirituality of compassion, nonviolence, love and peace, we as a collective people have become self-righteous, arrogant, powerful, murderous hypocrites who dominate and kill others in the name of God.
"The man (sic) who can deliberately, and in cold blood, as it were, try to save his soul, must be grossly selfish.
To do that which shall redound to one's own advantage or profit, without care or consideration of another, shows little humanity. The finer feeling is that which looks after others rather than one's self. It can only increase selfishness to seek salvation.
When a man gets the idea that his soul must be saved, and goes to work to save it, the things that he will do in order to insure its salvation tend to lessen its value; and by the time he thinks his soul is saved it is generally not worth saving. ...
The cheapest method of saving one's soul is by believing something. This requires but little effort and no brains."
-- a vision comes to my mind of marchers bearing the banner: "Selfishness Through Ignorance".
Links in above are mine -- ed.
"The New Testament is a liberal's paradise; almost every principle espoused in it is one that liberals -- not conservatives -- espouse today."
"To deny that God in any sense loves the reprobate is to suggest that God holds us to a higher standard than He himself follows, for he instructs us to love our enemies‚ -- and Scripture teaches that when we love our enemies, we are behaving like God, who shows lovingkindness even to the reprobate (Deut. 10:18; Matt 5:44-45)."
"Apocalyptic views salvage the prophetic belief in God's power and justice -- but by shifting the focus of religious attention fromthe community as the primary beneficiary of God's justice in this life (the just community will be rewarded with shalom, peace and prosperity) to the individual who will receive his or her just reward in an afterlife."
"the church has, as an organized body, no sympathy with the masses. It is sort of a fashionable club where the rich are entertained and amused, and where most of the ministers are muzzled by their masters and dare not preach the gospel of the carpenter of Nazareth."
-- an anonymous worker to a Massachusetts sociologist, 1870
"Yet there is another side to the historical record..."
"If Jesus' parables were parental stories, they would concern such things as a perfect family, a perfect dinner party, a just manager, a just judge, a merciful slave, and a rich wise man; but his parables are "grandparent stories", about a prodigal family, a busted banquet, an unjust manager, an unjust judge, an unmerciful slave, and a rich fool."
page 12
"Parental stories are solemn and can kill by prescribing an ideal we cannot fulfil, but grandparent stories are humorous and give hope and life by sharing a reality similar to our own."
page 1
(The prostitute in the title is Rahab the Harlot, [see the Book of Joshua], who was the great-great-many-times-great grandmother of Jesus of Nazareth.) -- (back to top)
"Who are the impious? Those who give a white beard, feet and hands to the Being of beings, to the great Demiourgos, to the eternal intelligence by which nature is governed. ...
If even they paint the great incomprehensible Being borne on a cloud which can bear nothing; if they are foolish enough to put God in a mist, in the rain, or on a mountain, and to surround him with little chubby, flushed faces accompanied by two wings; I laugh and I pardon them with all my heart.
The impious persons who attribute to the Being of beings preposterous predictions and injustices would anger me if this great Being had not given me a reason which quells my wrath. The silly fanatic repeats to me, after others, that it is not for us to judge what is reasonable and just in the great Being, that His reason is not like our reason, that His justice is not like our justice. Eh! How, you mad demoniac, do you want me to judge justice and reason otherwise than by the notions I have of them? Do you want me to walk otherwise than with my feet, and to speak otherwise than with my mouth?
The impious man who supposes the great Being jealous, arrogant, malignant, vindictive, is more dangerous. I would not want to sleep under the same roof as this man. (Nor, how much more so, under a government influenced by this man or this woman.)
But how would you treat the impious man who says to you: 'See only through my eyes, do not think; I announce to you a tyrannical God who has made me to be your tyrant; I am his well-beloved; during all eternity he will torture millions of his creatures whom he detests in order to gladden me; I shall be your master in this world, and I shall laugh at your torments in the other?' "
"Fundamentalism fabricates the concept of 'cosmic absolutism', which requires their god to back it up. They then set themselves up as interpreters of that absolute, saying 'There can be no *civil* rights, e.g. for gays or abortions' etc."
"You don't get to play Christian on TV, or amass real political power along with your millions, by urging people not to throw the first stone, especially if they live in a glass house. Jesus tried that, and look what happened to him."
"James Hartline is the publisher of The James Hartline Report, a website so extreme that visitors unaligned with far right social causes will immediately feel the need for a bath. ...Google here.
Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson ....
The Reverend John Hagee ....
Sally Kern is a Republican State Legislator in Oklahoma. She's also the wife of an ordained Baptist minister. Ms. Kern gained notoriety in March of 2008 when she announced that gays were worse than terrorists. ...
Tony Perkins of the so-called Family Research Council ....
(Note: We didn't include Shirley Phelps-Roper, Matt Barber or ... Peter LaBarbera ....)
(Or Fred Phelps.)
"...to most Pagans, the need to attack others is viewed as a sign of fear and lack of self-confidence on the part of the attacker."
As far as I can tell, Gwydion's suggestions are sincere and effective --
i.e. recommendations which would make it more likely that Christian evangelists would convert Pagans!
"I believe that if God dwelt above the earth in the twelfth century of the Christian era, and witnessed the cruelty of priests and heard the cries of their poor victims when their bones were broken upon the rack or their flesh was burning in the wicked flames, and these priests should have lifted up their voices to this God and given him the glory of the awful sacrifice, he would have said to them: You lie; I never commanded one of my children to murder another. You are no ministers of mine, and your victims, with their heresies, are a thousand times holier in my sight than are you with your pious dogmas and holy sacraments."
So, what do you believe? Does your God command you to be cruel? Even "cruel to be kind"?
"You have arrived here, most likely, out of your concern about the "religious right", the Christian right, Christian nationalism, encroaching theocracy....
You are concerned, you want to know more. You want to know what you can do."
"I do further promise and declare, that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly,against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do and to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of thewhole earth, and that I will spare neither sex, age nor condition and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alivethese infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants' heads against the wall, in orderto annihilate forever their execrable race."
Pope Paul III, 1576
quoted here
"Blessed [are] the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed [are] the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed [are] the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed [are] they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus of Nazareth, c. 30 CE
quoted here
the heavenly host, celebrating Jesus' birth
"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much in the same way as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet, it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this would, after you closed your eyes to sleep; and there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arouse in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given, but His mercy; yea, no other reason can be given why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.
O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in! It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire if the wrath that you are held over in the hand of that God whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment."
etc, etc., etc.
Sinners in the hands of an angry God
A sermon by Jonathan Edwards
Preached July 8, 1741
(I must note that although I think this is
very bad theology,
it's very good preaching.)