William Edward Hartpole Lecky Quotes About Atheism

• When it began, Christianity was regarded as a system entirely beyond the range and scope of human reason; it was impious to question; it was impious to examine; it was impious to discriminate. On the other hand, it was visibly instinct with the supernatural. Miracles of every order and degree of magnitude were flashing forth incessantly from all its parts.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Hands, Order, Miracle

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1865). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.198

• La doctrina de un infierno material tenía por efecto enfriar y amortiguar las simpatías, predisponer a los hombres a infligir sufrimientos y retardar la marcha de la civilización.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Men, Civilization, Suffering

• When the Church obtained the direction of the civil power, she soon modified or abandoned the tolerant maxims she had formerly inculcated; and, in the course of a few years, restrictive laws were enacted, both against the Jews and against the heretics.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Years, Law, Atheism

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1865). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.29

• Whenever the clergy were at the elbow of the civil arm, no matter whether they were Catholic or Protestant, persecution was the result.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Catholic, Atheism, Elbows

• All history shows that, in exact proportion as nations advance in civilisation, the accounts of miracles taking place among them become rarer and rarer, until at last they entirely cease.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Miracle, Atheism, Lasts

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1865). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.158

• Fierce invectives against women form a conspicuous and grotesque portion of the writings of the Church fathers.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Father, Writing, Atheism

• When men have appreciated the countless differences which the exercise of that judgment must necessarily produce, when they have estimated the intrinsic fallibility of their reason, and the degree in which it is distorted by the will, when, above all, they have acquired that love of truth which a constant appeal to private judgment at last produces, they will never dream that guilt can be associated with an honest conclusion, or that one class of arguments should be stifled by authority.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Dream, Exercise, Men

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1870). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.72

• En el continente, todo intento de sustituir la muerte por un castigo más leve era ferozmente denunciado como una violación directa de la ley divina. De hecho, algunas personas llegaron a cuestionar la legalidad de estrangular a la bruja antes de que fuera quemada. Su crimen, decían, era traición contra el Todopoderoso, y por lo tanto castigarlo con cualquier muerte que no fuera la más agonizante era un acto de falta de respeto hacia Él. Además, la pena en el código levítico era la lapidación, y los teólogos judíos habían declarado que la lapidación era una muerte aún más dolorosa que la hoguera.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Law, Painful Death, Punishment

• Faith always presented to the mind the idea of an abnormal intellectual condition, of the subversion or suspension of the critical faculties. It sometimes comprised more than this, but it always included this. It was the opposite of doubt and of the spirit of doubt. What irreverent men called credulity, reverent men called faith; and although one word was more respectful than the other, yet the two words were with most men strictly synonymous.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Men, Opposites, Ideas

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1865). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.63

• Almost all Europe, for many centuries, was inundated with blood, which was shed at the direct instigation or with the full approval of the ecclesiastical authorities.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Blood, Europe, Atheism

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (2001). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.40, The Minerva Group, Inc.

• Terror is everywhere the beginning of religion.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Atheism, Terror, Positive Atheism

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1865). “History of the rise and influence of the spirit of rationalism in Europe”, p.444

• Nothing, indeed, could be more unlike the tone of the [Patristic] Fathers, than the cold, passionless, and prudential theology of the eighteenth century; a theology which regarded Christianity as an admirable auxiliary to the police force, and a principle of decorum and of cohesion in society, but which carefully banished from it all enthusiasm, veiled or attenuated all its mysteries, and virtually reduced it to an authoritative system of moral philosophy.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Philosophy, Father, Police

• Making every allowance for the errors of the most extreme fallibility, the history of Catholicism would on this hypothesis represent an amount of imposture probably unequaled in the annals of the human race.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Errors, Race, Atheism

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (2001). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.178, The Minerva Group, Inc.

• [Middleton] sostenía que los líderes religiosos del siglo IV habían admitido, elogiado y actuado habitualmente según principios diametralmente opuestos, no sólo a las aspiraciones de una santidad trascendente, sino a los dictados de la honestidad más común. Demostró que habían aplaudido la falsedad, que habían practicado la falsificación más al por mayor, que habían falsificado habitual y groseramente la historia, que habían adoptado al máximo el sistema de fraudes piadosos y que los empleaban continuamente para estimular la devoción del pueblo.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Religious, Honesty, People

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1870). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.154

• All over Europe the organs that represent dogmatic interests are in permanent opposition to the progressive tendencies around them, and are rapidly sinking into contempt. In every country in which a strong political life is manifested, the secularisation of politics is the consequence. Each stage of that movement has been initiated and effected by those who are most indifferent to dogmatic theology, and each has been opposed by those who are most occupied with theology.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Country, Strong, Europe

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1870). “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe”, p.129

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