There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.
Interpretation
Jefferson criticizes Christianity for causing foolishness and hypocrisy among people.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson expresses his disdain for Christianity, arguing that it lacks any redeeming qualities. He suggests that the religion leads to the foolishness of one group of people while making another group hypocritical, reflecting a deep-seated skepticism about religious belief and its impact on society. Jeffersonβs words indicate a belief that superstition, as he perceives it, does more harm than good, influencing human behavior negatively.
In practice
In a debate about the impact of religion on society.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
To be obsessed by God is to have an effective barricade against all the assaults of the enemy.
One always pulls the trigger out of self-interest and quotes history to avoid responsibility or pangs of conscience.
For a time, I believed not in God nor Santa Claus, but in mermaids. They seemed as logical and possible to me as the brittle twig of a seahorse in the zoo aquarium or the skates lugged up on the lines of cursing Sunday fishermen - skates the shape of old pillowslips with the full, coy lips of women.
I've been practising Buddhism for forty years, and that's what has led me to this path of discovering my own humanity and recognizing the humanity in others.
As long as we are flippant and stupid and shallow and think that we know ourselves, we shall never give ourselves over to Jesus Christ; but when once we become conscious that we are infinitely more than we can fathom, and infinitely greater in possibility either for good or bad than we can know, we shall be only too glad to hand ourselves over to Him.
To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute: the faster they hurry, the slower they go, and clinging cannot be limited: even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. Just let things be in their own way and there will be neither coming nor going. Obey the nature of things (your own nature), and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
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