Historical Humanists- Thomas Aikenhead

Thomas Aikenhead was a Scottish student from Edinburgh, who was prosecuted and executed on a charge of blasphemy. Aikenhead was indicted in December 1696. The indictment read: “That … the prisoner had repeatedly maintained, in conversation, that theology was a rhapsody of ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the moral doctrines of philosophers, and partly of poetical fictions and extravagant chimeras: That he ridiculed the holy scriptures, calling the Old Testament Ezra’s fables, in profane allusion to Esop’s Fables; That … Read on…

Faith versus Reason

Frequent commenter Lee recently pointed me to a blog essay by philosopher Michael Lynch, “Reasons for Reason.”

He says current American divisions are rooted in fundamental differences about what makes a belief believable. Lynch sees a problem of circularity in validating reason by using reason, with all beliefs thus ultimately premised on something arbitrary. Read on…

The Revelations of Joanna

The messiah’s mother was born in Devon, England, in April of 1750. What, you didn’t know? It was a strange day, featherstitched with endings and beginnings. Mobs stormed the French royals, Thomas Paine published The Rights of Man, Voltaire sewed seeds of doubt and sedition, and everywhere were new prophets and seers, feeding on spiritual anomie like the wild mushrooms of a wet, warm spring. In England was Joanna Southcott. A simple farmer’s daughter, former domestic servant and fairly bland … Read on…