"Russell's teapot"
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove
received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time".
the overwhelming focus of the New Testament is the path of inwardness to redemption, a path that is denied to animals because of their lack of understanding. In this regard, the New Testament relects the inluence of Stoic thought, which denies intellect to animals and argues that animals were created for the sake of human beings.
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This strain of thinking is predominant not only in Scripture, but also in patristic and scholastic thought. Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas are categorical in their subordination of animals to the interests of human beings and in their denial of direct moral obligations to animals. These convictions are maintained in the fourth century by Basil, Origen, and John Chrysostom, and they persist virtually unmodified in the Renaissance thought of Martin Luther. Even such putatively heterodox figures as Saint Francis do not advance an unqualified defense of animals. The writings of these authors merit close examination, because they pose
a serious challenge to anyone who would seek to build a robust sense of moral obligations toward animals on the foundation of orthodox Christian tradition.
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The most sublime Hysteric- Slavoj Zizek, s.10
According to orthodox dialectics, Understanding supposedly treats categories, conceptual determinates, as abstract moments, frozen and removed from the living totality, reduced to the specificity of their fixed identity. Reason, on the other hand, goes beyond the level of Understanding by deploying the living process of subjective (self-) mediation whose “dead” and rigid abstract moments, whose “objectifications,” are the categories of Understanding. Where Understanding sees only rigid categories, Reason sees the living movement that generates them. The Understanding/Reason distinction is therefore seen through the Bergsonian opposition between the flexible, moveable, vital force and the inert matter it produces that is accessible to Understanding
Renan'ın Kitab-ı Mukaddes üzerine ilk şüpheleri...
Alıntı...
"Gerçekten de ilahi bir kitapta her şey doğrudur, iki çelişkili durum aynı anda doğru olamayacağına göre onda hiçbir çelişki bulunmamalıdır. Oysa Kitab-ı Mukaddes’i dikkatle incelemem bana tarihsel ve estetik hazineler ifşa ediyordu ama aynı zamanda herhangi antik bir kitap kadar bu kitabın da çelişkilerden, tutarsızlıklardan ve yanlışlardan yoksun olmadığını da ispat ediyordu. Onda masallar, efsaneler ve insan tarafından oluşturulduğuna dair izler var. Yeşaya’nın ikinci kısmının Yeşaya’ya ait olduğunu savunmak artık mümkün değildir. Katoliklerin [orthodoxie] hepsinin esaret dönemine tarihlediği Daniel kitabı, M. Ö. 169 ya da 170’de yazılan bir apokriftir. Yudit kitabı, tarihsel bir imkânsızlıktır. Pentatök’ün Musa’ya mal edilmesi savunulamaz ve Tekvin’in birçok bölümünün mitik bir karaktere sahip olduğunu inkâr etmek, yeryüzü cenneti, yasak meyve ve Nuh’un gemisi gibi kıssaları gerçekmiş gibi açıklanmasına zorlamaktır."*
*Ernest Renan, Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse, Paris: Calmann Lévy, pp. 291-292.