Sunday, March 14, 2010
I'm inspired by Kurt Vonnegut.
"Socialism is no more an evil word than Christianity. Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve." That's a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's book, 'A Man Without a Country.' I'm reading Vonnegut and feeling inspired. --Jim Broede
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Another Vonnegut quote: "About Stalin's shuttered churches, and those in China today: Such suppression of religion was supposedly justified by Karl Marx's statement that 'religion is the opium of the people.' Marx said that back in 1844, when opium and opium derivatives were the only effective painkillers anyone could take. Marx himself had taken them. He was grateful for the temporary relief that they had given him. He was simply noticing, and surely not condemning, the fact that religion could also be comforting to those in economic and social distress. It was a casual truism, not a dictum." --Jim
More Vonnegut: "When Marx wrote those (above) words, by the way, we hadn't even freed our slaves yet. Who do you imagine was more pleasing in the eyes of a merciful God back then, Karl Marx or the United States of America?" --Jim
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