David Ray Griffin - Thomas Babington Macaulay - H L Hencken - Thomas Jefferson - Emma Goldman - C H Spurgeon -
One of them, God Power and Evil, rejects the traditional doctrine of Omnipotence. It even specifically criticises this doctrine as held by John Calvin – of course the founding theologian of the Presbyterian tradition. Another book of mine denies God can interrupt the world’s normal causal processes. Which means there can be no miracles as traditionally understood. And no infallibly inspired scriptures. But no-one was fired for publishing these books. Professor David Ray Griffin, interview Guns & Butter 7th January 2009
Persecution produced its natural effect on them [Puritans and Calvinists]. It found them a sect; it made them a faction. Thomas Babington Macaulay, History of England
What lay at the bottom of their savagery, of course, was their idiotic belief in Calvinism – beyond question the most brutal and barbaric theology ever subscribed to by mortal man, whether in or out of the African bush. H L Mencken
The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most intolerant, of all sects; the most tyrannical and ambitious, ready at the word of the law-giver, if such a word could not be obtained, to put their torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere the flame in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not subscribe to the proposition of Calvin, that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to the Calvinistic creed! They want to re-establish by law that holy inquisition which they can now only infuse into public opinion. Thomas Jefferson
Puritanism has made life itself impossible. More than art, more than aestheticism, life represents beauty in a thousand variations; it is indeed, a gigantic panorama of eternal change. Puritanism, on the other hand, rests on a fixed and immovable conception of life; it is based on the Calvinistic idea that life is a curse, imposed upon man by the wrath of God. In order to redeem himself man must do constant penance, must repudiate every natural and healthy impulse, and turn his back on joy and beauty. Emma Goldman
The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox’s gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again. C H Spurgeon, A Defense of Calvinism