11 posts tagged “christianity”

There's a nice piece by J.P. Moreland over at the Scriptorium discussing logic, God, and Jesus as a logician.  I really respect Dr. Moreland's appreciation of logic.  If I'd been raised around believers who had a similar appreciation, perhaps I wouldn't be struggling as much with matters of faith and belief as I am.

I value logic highly as a truth finding tool.  If God exists, logic is such, in my opinion, that I must agree with Moreland when he writes that it "comes from the very nature of God Himself."  I might even go one step further and assert that logic is God which can be biblically supported by John 1:1.

Moreland refers to an article called Jesus the Logician by Dr. Dallas Willard, a professor of philosophy at Southern Cal.  Another related article, also written from a biblical perspective, is God and Logic by Dr. Gordon H. Clark.

Good reads for believers and non-believers alike--for believers because most traditional Christians don't take logic seriously and they should and for non-believers because it is refreshing to discover some Christians out there that understand and embrace the value of logic as a mechanism of truth.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

A review of Christopher Hitchens' "careless and dishonest polemic" God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Tom Piatak .

Here's one paragraph:

Although Hitchens’ book is lively and well written, it is fatally marred by its many rhetorical evasions and falsehoods.  Throughout the book, whatever Hitchens dislikes is blamed on religion and whatever he likes is credited to something else.  A clergyman Hitchens admires, Martin Luther King, is dismissed as someone who was “in no real … sense … a Christian.” By contrast, Hitchens blames the atheistic dictatorships that killed more people in the 20th century than had been deliberately killed by the state in all the preceding centuries on religion, offering up the Jesuit missions of Paraguay which protected the Indians until their dissolution as the first successful instance of totalitarianism and claiming that “A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy.” What Hitchens ignores is that Christian Europe produced very few theocracies, because the Church, basing herself on its founder, has always taught that men should “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” The political legacy of Christianity is thus one of law and liberty, not one of unitary despotism and worship of the state.  In Hitchens’ strange mental universe, religion is to blame for slavery—a primordial human institution abolished in major part by religious men such as William Wilberforce—and the Rwandan genocide, where one Catholic ethnic group slaughtered a different Catholic ethnic group.  Hitchens also repeats the Communist inspired lie that Pius XII was “pro-Nazi,” citing as his sole authority the book by John Cornwell that has been so thoroughly discredited by serious historians that even its author no longer makes such a claim.

Complete Article

If God is dead, does that mean we cannot survive our own deaths? Recent best-selling books against religion agree that immortality is a myth we ought to outgrow. But there are a few thinkers with unimpeachable scientific credentials who have been waving their arms and shouting: not so fast. Even without God, they say, we have reason to hope for — or possibly fear — an afterlife.

Curiously, the doctrine of immortality is more a pagan legacy than a religious one...

Read more @ NYTimes

Jim Holt offers a thought provoking piece, however, I have to wonder what led him to distinguish paganism from religion.

Hypatia by Charles William Mitchell (1885)

Hypatia of Alexandria (Greek: Υπατία; born between 350 and 370 AD – 415 AD)was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, the first notable woman in mathematics, and also taught in the fields of astronomy and astrology.^[1] She lived in Alexandria in Roman Egypt at the turn of the Fifth Century, at a time when paganism was actively suppressed. Her fame stems principally from her murder in 415 AD at the hands of a Christian mob.

Letters written to Hypatia by her pupil Synesius give an idea of her intellectual milieu. She was of the Platonic school, although her adherence was to the writings of Plotinus, the 3rd century follower of Plato and principal of the neo-Platonic school.^[2]

Later sources attribute several works to Hypatia, including commentaries on Diophantus's Arithmetica, on Apollonius's Conics, and on Ptolemy's works, but none have survived. Her contributions to science are reputed (on scant evidence) to include the invention, working with her father Theon, of the astrolabe and the hydrometer.

Life and career

Hypatia was the daughter of Theon, who was her teacher and the last fellow of the Musaeum of Alexandria. Hypatia did not teach in the Musaeum, but received her pupils in her own home. Hypatia became head of the Platonist school at Alexandria in about 400. There she taught on mathematics and philosophy, and counted many prominent Christians among her pupils. No images of her exist, but nineteenth-century writers and artists envisioned her as an Athene-like beauty.

In 391, Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, had destroyed some of the native Roman pagan temples in the city, which may have included the Musaeum and certainly included the Serapeum (a temple for the worship of Serapis and "daughter library" to the Great Library). In the same year Emperor Theodosius I had published an edict prohibiting various aspects of pagan worship, whereupon (although this was part of a wider phenomenon) Christians throughout the Roman Empire embarked upon a thorough campaign to destroy or christianize pagan places of worship.

Hypatia lived during a conflict between pagans and Christians, who were demanding the final destruction of paganism as an imperial institution. Hypatia, herself a pagan, was respected by many Christians, and was even exalted by a few later Christian authors as a symbol of virtue, often being portrayed by them as a virgin until her death. The Suda is one such source, which also tells the story of her rebuffing a suitor by throwing sanitary napkins at him.^[3] These later portrayals are not entirely reliable, as they often contradict one another.

Her contemporary, the Christian historiographer Socrates Scholasticus in his Ecclesiastical History portrays her as follows:

There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more.

Some insight into the intellectual conflict of early 5th century Alexandria is given by the letters written by Synesius of Cyrene, Bishop of Ptolomais, to Hypatia, whom he loved and respected as his previous teacher. In one of them, he complains about people who begin to undertake philosophy after failing at some other career: "Their philosophy consists in a very simple formula, that of calling God to witness, as Plato did, whenever they deny anything or whenever they assert anything. A shadow would surpass these men in uttering anything to the point; but their pretensions are extraordinary." In this letter, he also tells Hypatia that "the same men" had accused him of storing "unrevised copies" of books in his library. ^[4] This suggests that books were rewritten to suit the prevailing Christian dogma, which may also relate to the difficulty of finding accurate contemporary information about Hypatia's life and death.

Death

Theories about the origins of the mob violence that ended Hypatia's life range from a local, spontaneous Christian uprising tolerated by the Christian Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria over a conflict between Cyril and the city prefect Orestes; to a conspiracy by the Emperor himself; to a lawless, civilian "peasant stock" mob (soldiers are never mentioned) made up of Christians and non-Christians alike, led by a man named "Peter". Another point of view holds that Hypatia was part of a rebellion and her murder inevitable.

Socrates Scholasticus described her death thus in his Ecclesiastical History:

Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort. This happened in the month of March during Lent, in the fourth year of Cyril's episcopate, under the tenth consulate of Honorius, and the sixth of Theodosius [AD 415].

John, Bishop of Nikiû, a 7th century author, described her death as follows, obviously drawing on Socrates but coming to rather different conclusions and portraying Hypatia as a witch:^[5]

And in those days there appeared in Alexandria a female philosopher, a pagan named Hypatia, and she was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through (her) Satanic wiles. And the governor of the city honored her exceedingly; for she had beguiled him through her magic. And he ceased attending church as had been his custom....A multitude of believers in God arose under the guidance of Peter the magistrate – now this Peter was a perfect believer in all respects in Jesus Christ – and they proceeded to seek for the pagan woman who had beguiled the people of the city and the prefect through her enchantments. And when they learnt the place where she was, they proceeded to her and found her seated on a (lofty) chair; and having made her descend they dragged her along till they brought her to the great church, named Caesarion. Now this was in the days of the fast. And they tore off her clothing and dragged her [till they brought her] through the streets of the city till she died. And they carried her to a place named Cinaron, and they burned her body with fire. And all the people surrounded the patriarch Cyril and named him 'the new Theophilus'; for he had destroyed the last remains of idolatry in the city.

Edward Gibbon in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire states (using words that are repeated almost verbatim in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology):^[6]

Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the mathematician, was initiated in her father's studies; her learned comments have elucidated the geometry of Apollonius and Diophantus; and she publicly taught, both at Athens and Alexandria, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. In the bloom of beauty, and in the maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused her lovers and instructed her disciples; the persons most illustrious for their rank or merit were impatient to visit the female philosopher; and Cyril beheld, with jealous eye, the gorgeous train of horses and slaves who crowded the door of her academy. A rumor was spread among the Christians, that the daughter of Theon was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of the prefect and the archbishop; and that obstacle was speedily removed. On a fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the reader and a troop of savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster-shells, and her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames. The just progress of inquiry and punishment was stopped by seasonable gifts; but the murder of Hypatia has imprinted an indelible stain on the character and religion of Cyril of Alexandria.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states:^[7]

In one of these riots, in 422, the prefect Callistus was killed, and in another was committed the murder of a female philosopher Hypatia, a highly-respected teacher of neo-Platonism, of advanced age and (it is said) many virtues. She was a friend of Orestes, and many believed that she prevented a reconciliation between the prefect and patriarch. A mob led by a lector, named Peter, dragged her to a church and tore her flesh with potshards till she died. This brought great disgrace, says Socrates, on the Church of Alexandria and on its bishop; but a lector at Alexandria was not a cleric (Scr., V, xxii), and Socrates does not suggest that Cyril himself was to blame. Damascius, indeed, accuses him, but he is a late authority and a hater of Christians.

Soldan and Heppe^[8] argue that Hypatia may have been the first famous "witch" punished under Christian authority, as was noted by many church-critical authors who argued that Hypatia's death seems to match the punishment for witchcraft prescribed by the Emperor Constantius II, to be "torn off their bones with iron hooks."

However, while some of the Christian invective used to justify or excuse her murder betrays a vulgar reliance on fear of black magic, the essence of Christian objections to her influence will have lain in the turbulent confluence of Christian and Platonic assertions about the nature of God and the afterlife, which achieved its most famous expression fifteen years later in Augustine's The City of God. The Patriarch, Cyril, a theologian who was posthumously canonised by the church, has been accused of complicity in the murder,^[9] although conclusive evidence of this is lacking.

Some authors have used Hypatia's death as a symbol of the "repression of reasoned paganism by irrational religion". Included among these was the astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan, who provided a vivid account of her death and the burning of the Library of Alexandria in his popular science book Cosmos. Earlier writers sharing that view include Voltaire and historian Edward Gibbon. A serious study by the Polish historian Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (1995), explains Hypatia's death as the result of a struggle between two Christian factions, the moderate Orestes—supported by Hypatia—and the more rigid Cyril. This point is alluded to by Smith, who states "She was accused of too much familiarity with Orestes, prefect of Alexandria, and the charge spread among the clergy, who took up the notion that she interrupted the friendship of Orestes with their archbishop, Cyril."

All the above works use ancient writers as their primary sources. Dzielska, alone, makes use of surviving personal letters written by students of the philosopher.

Bertrand Russell - History of Western Philosophy - Page 342 (The quote within the quote is of Gibbon):

St. Cyril, the advocate of unity, was a man of fanatical zeal. He used his position as patriarch to incite pogroms against the very large Jewish colony in Alexandria. His claim to fame is the lynching of Hypatia, a distinguished lady who, in an age of bigotry, adhered to the Neoplatonic philosophy and devoted her talents to mathematics. She was ‘torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the Reader and a troop of savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster-shells and her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames. The just progress of inquiry and punishment was stopped by seasonable gifts.’ After this, Alexandria was no longer troubled by philosophers.

Year of birth

Hypatia could have been born anytime between AD 350 and 370. Traditionally a late date of birth has been ascribed to Hypatia, perhaps influenced by after-the-fact romanticized images of her which depict her dying as a young and beautiful woman. Many authors presumed she died in her forties, and thus had been born around 370. However, Maria Dzielska has most recently argued that she was more likely born around 350 and thus would have been in her sixties when she was killed. And yet, Dzielska also makes a case for Hypatia's father, Theon, having been born in 335. This can be found on page 68 of her book Hypatia of Alexandria. If this is so, and if Hypatia was born, as claimed, in 350, Theon could have been no more than fifteen years of age at her birth. As this is unlikely, a later date for Hypatia's birth seems obvious. A date as late as 370 would make Theon thirty five, a much more likely age for fatherhood. (Theon's birthdate seems to be an accepted fact, as evidenced by "Theon of Alexandria" by G. J. Toomer in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography 13:321-325.

Modern references

Hypatia is believed to be the sole woman represented in Raphael's 1506/1510 work The School of Athens. She is standing at the lower left, dressed in white and looking directly at the viewer.

In 1853, the novelist Charles Kingsley wrote the serialized novel Hypatia, based loosely on the historical Hypatia.

In 1868 Julia Margaret Cameron created a photograph entitled Hypatia. It is held in a Private collection, but can be viewed in : Marsh, Jan, and Pamela Gerrish Nunn. Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists. London: Thames & Hudson, 1998. (33, cat#38)

In 1885, the artist Charles William Mitchell painted his only famous work, a stylized interpretation of Hypatia standing at a church altar, moments before her death.

In the late 1970s, Hypatia was depicted by Judy Chicago in her work The Dinner Party. Hypatia sits at the end of the First Wing.

Hypatia figures prominently in the first episode of the 1980 PBS television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan in the scenes with the Library of Alexandria. He reprises the story in the last episode.

In the Heirs of Alexandria series, by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint and Dave Freer, Hypatia's conversion to Christianity and subsequent correspondence with John Chrysostom and St. Augustine altered history dramatically. Though she does not actually appear in the novels, set in the 1530s, her actions are directly responsible for the alternate fantasy premise of the series.

Hypatia Cade, a precocious child and main character in the sci-fi book The Ship Who Searched is named after Hypatia of Alexandria. The book is a collaboration between authors Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffery. Hypatia Cade's parents are archeologists.

In Umberto Eco's novel Baudolino (Milan: Bompiani, 2000. English translation by William Weaver, New York: Harcourt 2002, ISBN 0-15-100690-3), the main character (after which the novel takes its name) meets a member of a secluded society of satyr-like creatures who all take their name and philosophy from Hypatia.

Rinne Groff's 2000 play 'The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem' features the genius daughter of a prize-winning mathematician named Hypatia, who lives silent, in fear that she will one day suffer the fate of her namesake.

Remembering Hypatia is a fictional treatment of her life and death by author Brian Trent.

In Mark London Williams' Danger Boy time travel series for young readers, Hypatia is a recurring character.

Hypatia is the name of a 'shipmind' (ship computer), modeled after the historical Hypatia, in Frederick Pohl's The Boy Who Would Live Forever, part of the Gateway Heechee series.

HYPATIA, an explicit, assiduously researched historical science-fiction novel about her, by Khan Amore.

Hypatia Sans Pro is an Adobe typeface named after her. Debuting in limited release as a partially complete set (a retail edition with italics is projected) on April 16, 2007, the font is a geometric sans serif with humanist tendencies and capitals based on classical Roman proportions, according to its designer, Thomas Phinney.

Of the three hundred or so craters on the moon named for mathematicians, one is called Hypatia.

References

1.  Hypatia, Encyclopædia Britannica:
   

   
   

   "Egyptian Neoplatonist philosopher who was the first notable woman in mathematics."
   



2. Christian historiographer Socrates Scholasticus in his Ecclesiastical History portrays her as follows: There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more.


3. Suda online, Upsilon 166, 6^[1] Accessed 22 June 2006. "She was so very beautiful and attractive that one of those who attended her lectures fell in love with her. He was not able to contain his desire, but he informed her of his condition. Ignorant reports say that Hypatia relieved him of his disease by music; but truth proclaims that music failed to have any effect. She brought some of her female rags and threw them before him, showing him the signs of her unclean origin, and said, "You love this, O youth, and there is nothing beautiful about it." His soul was turned away by shame and surprise at the unpleasant sight, and he was brought to his right mind."


4. Letter 154 of Synesius of Cyrene to Hypatia (online version).


5. John, Bishop of Nikiu: The Life of Hypatia. Chronicle 84.87–103 (online version).


6. This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1867).


7. Catholic Encyclopedia, "St. Cyril of Alexandria"


8. Soldan, W.G. und Heppe, H., Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, Essen 1990. p.82.


9.  Suda, Upsilon 166 6–8. Of note, this is a 10th century source.
   

Primary Sources

• Charles, R. H. The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu: Translated from Zotenberg's Ethiopic Text, 1916. Reprinted 2007. Evolution Publishing, ISBN 978-1-889758-87-9. ^[2]
  

External links

• Resources on Hypatia: booklist, classroom activities


• Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr The first biography of Hypatia to integrate all aspects of her life. Includes serious discussion of her mathematics. By Michael Deakin, honorary research fellow and former senior lecturer in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash University, Australia


• Hypatia on ABC Radio Transcript of an interview with Dr Michael Deakin about his research on Hypatia, broadcast on Australia's ABC Radio National. Sunday, 3 August, 1997


• Extensive biography on Hypatia This website takes the position that Hypatia was an astrologer


• James Grout: Hypatia, part of the Encyclopædia Romana


• "Hipatia" – an organization promoting "the adoption of public policies combined with human and social behaviour that favour the free availability and sustainability of, and social access to, technology and knowledge"


• Her history and contributions to science


• English translations of some of the works referred to above


• Hypatia World: website dedicated to the continuation of the work of Hypatia


• A counter-point to some of the assertions appearing in Maria Dzielska's Hypatia of Alexandria


• The Important Life & Tragic Death of Hypatia


• O'Connor, John J; Edmund F. Robertson "Hypatia of Alexandria". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.  


• A collection of free high-resolution Hypatia-related images, including portraits of Hypatia, rare old illustrations from the German translation of Charles Kingsley's novel about this great woman, and old maps of ancient Alexandria, Egypt, and the Hellenistic World.


• HYPATIA, LA FIGLIA DI THEONE. An unconformist, well researched article by Giovanni Costa, in Italian


• Charlotte Kramer's engaging novel, HOLY MURDER, The Death of Hypatia of Alexandria The author, a forensic historian, unveils the very personal life and times of this beautiful and brilliant philosopher-scientist. Though classified as historical fiction, Charlotte Kramer's extensive research uncovered the real reasons for Hypatia's death.

Copied and reprinted under GNU Free Documentation License

I don't usually copy things in entirety for Voxing, however, I'm making an exception in this case because it comes from a blog I rarely visit and rather than channel you there to make comments I may never see, I'd like to see your thoughts on this here.

"Spirituality" vs Spirituality

Here are two different lists that can help determine a) if our service/sacrifice is Christ-centered or if it's self-worship, and b) if our spirituality is Gospel-driven or only vaguely Christian.

Is Your Spirituality About Jesus or About You?

1. Do you often crave recognition for your service or ministry?
2. If you do, in this struggle for recognition do you ever resent the service or successes of others?
3. When you are going through a difficulty is your predominant concern that you don’t “deserve” it because of your service?
4. Could you characterize your devotion to causes and efforts as more about things that worry or upset you than about things that honor Christ?
5. Do you find yourself comparing your spiritual life positively or negatively against your perception of others’?
6. Do the people who know you as a spiritual person know you as committed to Christian spirituality?
7. If someone were to ask you what is the meaning of life, how would you answer? (Hint: If your answer does not mention the God of the Bible, it is only vaguely spiritual.)

“Spirituality” vs. The Gospel

Spirituality says this makes me feel better; the Gospel says this makes me healed and whole.

Spirituality says I can do it!; the Gospel says Jesus has done it.

Spirituality says we can make our own life; the Gospel says there is no life apart from Jesus.

Spirituality says we have inherent potential to change the world; the Gospel says we are dead in sin and only Jesus Christ can redeem the world.

Spirituality says I am good; the Gospel says Jesus is good.

Spirituality relies on us and worships our efforts; the Gospel relies on Jesus and trusts in him.

By Jared @ The Thinklings

There's a lot I could say about this article but most of it goes without saying, so why bother? I just hate finding myself in agreement with Cal Thomas.

"Sen. Clinton is entitled to whatever faith she wants to practice, but when she uses it as an election tactic, she should not be allowed to alter classic Christian theology," Thomas concluded.

Read more and stew

That goes for Bush, Romney, Obama, and all the rest.

Stephen Law writes this commentary on Kierkegaard however it's his assessment of Christianity in light of Kierkegaard's point of view that I find intriguing.  He writes:

An authentic Christian faith, thinks Kierkegaard, involves making a deeply passionate and personal commitment to accept divine authority above all else. It involves making a fearful, life-transforming leap beyond what is reasonable and rational to accept what is profoundly paradoxical. It is a leap that must be made, not once, but repeatedly.

It's a thought provoking read that will have the 'fundies' screaming heresy when it should give them pause.

I fully realize that the dreaded f-word will be trotted out to stigmatize any model of this kind. Before responding, however, we must first look into the use of this term 'fundamentalist'. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like 'son of a bitch', more exactly 'sonovabitch', or perhaps still more exactly (at least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on matters of pronunciation) 'sumbitch'. When the term is used in this way, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would you feel obliged first to define the term?) Still, there is a bit more to the meaning of 'fundamentalist' (in this widely current use): it isn't simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it more like 'stupid sumbitch' (or maybe 'fascist sumbitch'?) than 'sumbitch' simpliciter. It isn't exactly like that term either, however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation is that the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase 'considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.' The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like 'stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine'.

Alvin Plantinga: Warranted Christian Belief

Hat Tip:  Brian Trapp

I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean real good works ... not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity.  Benjamin Franklin: Works, Vol. VII, p. 75

Little, if anything, about Christianity has changed since Ben Franklin penned these wise words except perchance the growing magnitude of the problem he described.  More's the pity.