“The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.”

— Thomas Paine

Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

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Thomas Paine 262

English and American political activist 1737–1809

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Context: The history of religions reaches down and makes contact with that which is essentially human: the relation of man to the sacred. The history of religions can play an extremely important role in the crisis we are living through. The crises of modern man are to a large extent religious ones, insofar as they are an awakening of his awareness to an absence of meaning.

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“Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations, there is sometimes mixture of vanity, and of superstition.”

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Context: The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types — the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.

“A Third World War? With an atom bomb? He said it, with an atom bomb. There would be no more world. The world would end. Humanity would no longer exist. I think he has to be put in an asylum. He has to be put in an mental asylum.”

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Jasper Fforde book First Among Sequels

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“The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Bk. III, Ch. 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

“The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.”

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