by Ferdinand Bardamu
Christianity: bringer of ignorance
Christianity is dangerous because it elevates ignorance and stupidity over reason. In the gospel, Jesus encourages his followers to be like “sheep,” the stupidest and most docile of animals. Here, the ideal Christian is a character of low intelligence and little education. Jesus said that unless one becomes a child again one cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. In response to doubting Thomas, Jesus said: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” The apostle Paul echoed this point of view when he wrote “the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of god.” Through a program of religious indoctrination from cradle to grave, the church forced Europeans to accept these beliefs as so many divinely revealed truths from heaven. Widespread acceptance of these beliefs helped retard scientific and technological progress in Europe for over a thousand years.
The fathers of the church promoted “holy ignorance” as an ideal to be emulated. Tertullian is noted among patristic writers for his militant anti-intellectualism. Although one of the most prominent despisers of classical philosophy and science, he was by no means in the minority. His attitude is typical of ecclesiastical officials during the patristic and medieval periods. This long list of Christian bigots includes Tatian, a noted apologist who regarded all pagan scientific and philosophical achievement as worthless, even harmful to the Christian faithful. Clement of Alexandria, another prominent ante-Nicene writer, argued that education was not necessary for salvation. Origen donated his extensive collection of pagan literature because of the fundamental incompatibility between secular learning and Bible study. The 4th century Apostolic Constitutions, an early work of canon law considered authoritative in the east, commands the Christian believer to shun all pagan learning as “strange” and “diabolical.”
Basil of Caesarea advised the faithful: “Let us Christians prefer the simplicity of our faith to the demonstrations of human reason… For to spend much time on research about the essence of things would not serve the edification of the Church.” Ironically, Basil is considered an example of moderation by apologists for Christianity. He believed that the usefulness of pagan literature should depend on level of scriptural agreement, making philosophy and science a kind of second- or third-rate handmaiden of theology. Writings least in accord with the Bible, almost all secular philosophy and science, were to be consigned to the trash bin.
Athanasius of Alexandria scorned all secular wisdom as blasphemy against the crucified god. In his famous hagiography of St. Antony, the illiterate monk is portrayed as a wise man. Despite his illiteracy, Antony’s hermit-like existence is considered the “perfect pattern of anchoretic life.” Antony even asks visiting pagan philosophers to become just like him in his “wisdom,” even though he is ignorant of all worldly learning.
The homilies of John Chrysostom, a noted anti-intellectual of the 4th century, are filled with vile denunciations of philosophy and science. He even periodically exhorted the Christian faithful to empty their minds of all secular wisdom. John routinely spewed vitriol against the classical heritage, advocating its systematic eradication, but only to magnify the power and influence of the gospel in daily life. Preaching before an elite audience in Constantinople, John’s vision was of a radically pure and ascetic Christianity, one stripped of all pagan influence. Given his oratorical ability and considerable powers of invective, as well as high standing in the patristic canon, there can be no doubt that John’s great hatred of secular knowledge played an influential role in the church’s decision to censor and suppress the writings of classical antiquity.
John Cassian, the great spiritual guide of Latin Christendom, advised the monk to seek out the company of uneducated peasants for his own personal edification. The abbot Arsenius, a former imperial tutor, regarded his education in classical Greek and Latin as inferior to the “wisdom” of illiterate Egyptian monks. The 4th century Christian ascetic and theologian Evagrius Ponticus declared: “Blessed is the man who has attained infinite ignorance.” The 5th century Statuta Ecclesia Antiqua banned the clergy from reading pagan books, unless their anti-Christian and heretical opinions needed to be refuted. This was incorporated into the 12th century Decretum Gratiani, a source of canon law for the Roman church until 1918.
Although considered a text-based religion, Christian teachings were orally transmitted until Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1440. Patristic and medieval Christianity viewed literacy in a negative light. Church tradition had always maintained that the first apostles lived in a state of “blessed ignorance.” In imitation of these men, Christians refused to teach their congregations how to read and write, especially during the first three centuries of the church’s existence.
The ante-Nicene church produced no translations of the bible for the indigenous populations of the provinces and frontiers, even though these populations were in regular contact with itinerant missionaries since the earliest days of primitive Christianity. The few patristic exhortations to Bible reading were aimed at a small minority of educated Christians. Centuries of theological controversy contributed to a view of Bible reading as a subversive undertaking. It was actively discouraged by the clergy, who ensured that the common people under their pastoral care would remain illiterate for generations. During the Middle Ages, church councils were convened to forbid the laity from having in their possession the Bible in Latin or any of the Romance languages. The penalty was burning at the stake for anyone caught translating the Bible into the vernacular.
Paideia suffered under the new ecclesiastical and Christian imperial bureaucracy. Officials of church and state had more important things to do then educate little children in the rudiments of Latin grammar and arithmetic. Illiteracy deepened and became more widespread under Christian influence. The anti-educational priorities of the church, increasing in virulence with the passage of time, discouraged more and more people from getting an education. This continued until literacy vanished from entire regions of post-Roman Europe. The Christian church’s deep-seated hostility to learning and scholarship, besides its positive estimation of ignorance and illiteracy, maintained western Europe at a prehistoric level of development for centuries.
The 4th century, which saw the triumph of Christianity, was a period of significant intellectual decline. There were no great figures in science, architecture or medicine. The 4th century could boast of no philosophers of the same caliber as Plotinus; there were no great writers or dramatists. Schools were closed, higher studies were abandoned, and the pagan libraries were sealed shut. The intellectual and artistic productions of the age were of little depth and substance. The all-pervasive Christian hostility to the life of the mind brought about this age of sterility.
12 replies on “Why Europeans must reject Christianity, 6”
Di magni, salaputium disertum!
These polemics are a tour de force. This Bardamu fellow really knows his stuff!
Are you familiar with the masthead of this site?
https://westsdarkesthour.com/2018/02/rome_judea2.pdf
I’m working my way through it. Very interesting. The author appears to accept the conventional view that the Jews originated monotheism, but as Revilo Oliver also has pointed out, a close reading of the Old Testament indicates that there were other gods, since the god of the Jews defeats them, which would be impossible if they didn’t exist. Also, the commandment given in Exodus 20:3, that “3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” clearly implies that there ARE other gods, or it doesn’t make sense.
As far as I’ve ever been able to make out, monotheism was actually the creation of Greek philosophers. Judaism is just a reworking of Zoroastrianism. It’s dualistic, just like Christianity. In both religions, Satan has all the attributes of a god as well.
What the author says in the 3rd part of this essay was the true Eureka moment after my ‘red’-pilling (in other words, before reading it I was sort of purple pilled, not fully awakened).
Didn’t Eli Wiesel say the same thing?
Once again, I find in this a connection between Jesus and Hitler. National Socialism was specifically tailored to Germany and the spirit of its people. It was never intended as a system to be exported to non-Germanic countries.
National Socialism, according to what Hitler said and wrote, was meant for the German people alone, suffering under their superficially imposed Jewish yoke. Yet, others in non Germanic countries have taken up the words and principles of National Socialism to hold as their own model.
Likewise Jesus words and teachings were meant for first century Temple Jews suffering under their Jewish imposed yoke. His words and teachings, thought to be “universal,” were never intended for export to “gentile nations.”
In Matthew 16:15 Jesus commands his disciples:
15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”
And in Matthew 28:19-20 he repeats:
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
This is referred to as “The Great Commission”, and is present also in Luke 24:44-47:
44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah[a] is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
It’s confusing, because in other places in the NT Jesus says he has come only for the Jews. I guess we are to suppose he changed his mind after being crucified. This is only one of many contradictions in the Bible.
Erm, that first one should be Mark 16:15, not Matthew.
The Library of Alexandria was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world and part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion. Theon of Alexandria and later his daughter Hypatia were heads of the “Mouseion”, which took its name from the Hellenistic institution that had once incorporated the library, but which had little other connection.
The library’s membership appears to have ceased by the 260s AD and, between 270–275 AD, it was attacked under the orders of the emperor Aurelian, but, by that time, the center of learning in Alexandria had already been moved to the Serapeum.
The Serapeum was burned in 391 AD under a decree issued by Coptic Christian pope Theophilus of Alexandria and was was destroyed in the Christian attack on the pagan temples. The celebrated Hypatia who studied geometry and musicology and whom the Christians, convinced in their ignorance was a heretic, was barbarously murdered by them in 415 AD.
By this time, the city’s books had changed, and not only in content. The delicate scrolls of old had gone. Their last remnants had been cast out as refuse or buried in the sand, and they had been replaced by more substantial parchment, elegantly made and bound into thick codices – and crawling with errors, for Greek was increasingly a forgotten language. The texts now consisted chiefly of patristic writings, Acts of Councils, and ‘sacred literature’ in general.
This library was not Ptolemy’s original great collection, nor was it the center of scholarship in what was then the modern world. It was a broken-down remnant of its former self, neglected for centuries. The collection was mostly stocked with materials that reflected what Judeo-Christian bureaucrats would have considered important; these materials did not reflect the Greek ideal of universal knowledge that had birthed the library in the first place.
Isn’t this the same “Ferdinand Bardamu” of the defunct site “In Mala Fide” who turned out to be Matt Forney?
The author asked me to use the above penname. His real name is not Matt Forney.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Bardamu
Basically, the Jew’s Christianity was responsible for the dark ages. Imagine what the world might look like absent the Jew’s influence.
This pursuit to maintain ignorance among the people was exactly what the argument between the Sadducees and the Pharisees was about, i.e., the imperative for religious leaders to keep people separate from their innate spiritual nature so the priests can forever remain the intercessors between man and their made up gods.
The Sadducees wanted to maintain the oral tradition while the Pharisees wanted it committed to scrolls. The idea was to keep the people ignorant and stupid of the truth so they could not examine, question and therefore refute the foolish, but profitable, beliefs of the Temple’s religious leaders.
Jesus was a classic example of the problem the Sadducees and later Christian leaders feared. Jesus was trained in the law and Temple tradition. Because of his education he was able to question and refute the Temple’s onerous demands for sacrificial tribute.
Later Judeocommunists pulled the same trick as Christian leaders, forbidding people to read or possess western literature under draconian penalties for disobedience to their iron-fisted dictates.
The Jews then turned their suppression of speech around to project it on the National Socialist, using the destruction of the Jew’s sick, perverse literature as an excuse to blame the NS for suppression of “free speech.” Of course the National Socialist did not ban the works of Jewish scientific contributions, what little of it there was.
With their usual Janus-faced hypocrisy, Jews in America are now once again using their communist brethren’s idea, saying that forms of speech and ideas Jew’s abhor, must be prohibited to protect people from their dangers.