Ye Olde Timey Skeptic

[DJ Droood]

Whilst doing some genealogical research, I found this in some old New Haven, Connecticut court records from 1640. It pleases me to think that even while living in the middle of a Puritan theocracy, someone was saying "yea, right" out loud.

[Badger Bob]

That isn't quite how I read it. To me it looks like someone has been accused of scoffing at religion and he has protested his innocence in court. The court couldn't prove the case against him but admonished and cautioned him as a warning to him and to others. Given the petty bickering nature of such court cases both here in the UK and the colonies in the C17th it could well just be a case of vexatious litigation.

It would be nice if he actually was sticking two fingers up to the theocracy though...

[treegod]

Like the way religion, admonition and caution are spelt; makes me want to say them with a French accent (French phonology looks similar with its nasalised vowels).

[DJ Droood]

That isn't quite how I read it. To me it looks like someone has been accused of scoffing at religion and he has protested his innocence in court.

I think I would turn religious quickly, too...."Wasn't me, Your Honour...God bless you!"....faced with a flogging in the square.

[treegod]

I, simply through my sceptic reasoning, could convince them not to flog me (or worse) for my disbelief in God.

And if not, well, Jehovah curse them!

[DJ Droood]

I wonder if anyone has done a history of religious skepticism? Probably, eh? Like the Bible verse

Psalm 14:1-3 The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."

leads one to believe there were "fools" saying such things from the get-go.

[Kishi]

I wouldn't equate that Bible quote with C17th puritanism. I'd equate its 'fools' with what Einstein described as 'dead':

"The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms ~ this knowledge, this feeling is at the centre of true religiousness."

I do not assume that the 'God' of the Bible is the one talked about by bitter Sunday school teachers.

[DJ Droood]

Nice Einstein quote!