The whole history of America has been shaped by Puritan thought, which led to white self-hatred before Jews got here in numbers.
Jonathan Edwards was born in 1703, so he wrote a century after the original Puritans got here, but he is considered the greatest of ALL American theologians by many historians, if not most.
Here Edwards says what causes the most joy in a Puritan’s heart:
The Eternity of Hell Torments
by Jonathan Edwards
Fourth, the sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. It will not only make them more sensible of the greatness and freeness of the grace of God in their happiness, but it will really make their happiness the greater, as it will make them more sensible of their own happiness. It will give them a more lively relish of it: it will make them prize it more. When they see others, who were of the same nature and born under the same circumstances, plunged in such misery, and they so distinguished, O it will make them sensible how happy they are. A SENSE OF THE OPPOSITE MISERY, IN ALL CASES, GREATLY INCREASES THE RELISH OF ANY JOY OR PLEASURE.
#1 by shari on 09/16/2007 - 5:30 pm
It’s hard to see now, as people largely don’t believe these things, but they used to be very concerned with SALVATION. Wordism was very useful to keep all those people struggling to be saved. Now, they don’t struggle, they just jump up and down, all together, black and white, mestizo, or whatever, and declare they are so, so SAVED. And wordism keeps them going.
Wordism is always with us.
#2 by shari on 09/16/2007 - 6:16 pm
Being free of the machinations of enemies and being around others, who are happy to be free of it, is what would greatly increase joy and happiness. Watching, even enemies, endure unimaginable torment, and enjoying it, is demonic. In some cases, a swift hanging will do.
#3 by Hardric on 09/16/2007 - 7:07 pm
Wow, for a minute there I thought you might have made a “Copy and Paste” blunder and accidentally retrieved a quote from Alan Dershowitz.
#4 by Hardric on 09/17/2007 - 12:00 am
I will say this about Jonathan Edwards. He made a fine art of redundancy. I can see that this technique could be used to turn a 10 minute sermon into a 60 minute sermon, with the unfortunate consequences that enduring the sermons might at some point become competitive with the torments.
#5 by Mark on 09/17/2007 - 8:55 am
“Wordism was very useful to keep all those people struggling to be saved.”
Sherri, I’ve always said that if it takes a so-called “holy” book or the threat of hellfire to make one live an honest life chances are that person’s morality is phony too.
#6 by Mark on 09/17/2007 - 9:04 am
“A SENSE OF THE OPPOSITE MISERY, IN ALL CASES, GREATLY INCREASES THE RELISH OF ANY JOY OR PLEASURE.”
The Baptists, in my part of the country, live this philosophy, and a few Lutherans as well. If you don’t accept their offer to be saved according to their manner of religion they are fond of sticking knives in your back and acting gleeful at your impending eternal doom.
One thing I’ve noticed, though. When one of their daughters marries a negro they don’t have any trouble praising him to high heaven once he accepts “salvation” and then relegating him to the back aisle, bringing him out occasionally to prove they aren’t racists, and then promptly turning their backs on him again as soon as the topic of conversation changes. It’s as if they wish he weren’t there, period, but since the church demands intermarriage they have much to lose if they don’t provide a token negro in the family photo.
#7 by Dave on 09/17/2007 - 2:49 pm
Hardric
You just explained the essence of the last two centuries’ religious history.
“Old time” religion came to an end at the very moment it had to compete with (1) newspapers (1840’s); (2) radio (1910s); (3) TV (1950s).
Do you know how TIRED the public was of hearing those endlessly redundant “sermons” while looking at the back of their neighbor’s heads in the pews? Do you know how TIRED the public was of never having access to the anonymity of the big city?
Small town life was hell from a personal accountability perspective, you were held accountable for everything and anything 24 x 7 with serious consequences for “straying”.
That’s what the now romanticized small town life was really like until the development of big cities and mass media ended it. But don’t ask anybody today, they don’t have a clue.
The broad American public JUMPED at the chance to escape their small town environments at the first opportunity.
By the 1920s the sheer buffoonery of the all thinly veiled excuses for not participating in old time religion became hilarious. The invitation to have fun “in the city” provided by the mass media (with appropriate rationalizations, of course) was irresistible.
TV just supercharged the trend and religion was forced to evolve to this odd thing we have going today, where everything is permitted and forgiven in some sort of nebulous notion of a “divine compassion” that confers automatic “salvation” no matter what you do.
The idea that there is no payoff whatsoever in fealty to God is so alien to contemporary consciousness (fundamentalist Molsems included) that the notion cannot be processed as a unit of meaning.
People today cannot imagine such an ideology. It’s like it can’t exist.
This speaks volumes about what is really going on.
#8 by Hardric on 09/18/2007 - 9:23 am
Is there anyone who wakes up in the morning and thinks: “Do I want to commit crimes today or be law abiding? Which sex do I prefer?”
I have never faced that dilemma. How about “What’s for breakfast?”
#9 by Pain on 09/19/2007 - 9:47 pm
People who believe in nothing or who acknowledge nothing higher than themselves like to think they are the opposite of Puritans.
But they are the same.
Call them “individualists,” “self-worshippers,” or “a city on a shining hill;” each defines “reality” in turns of HIMSELF, which is precisely what reality is NOT about. Those with a wrong sense of reality must be swept aside.