Thomas Keneally Quotes
So I remember both medicine, because I frequently sick, particularly with asthma for which there was no proper treatment then, and in religion I had a strong sense of there being a patriarchy.
Keneally, Thomas. Interview by Robin Hughes. Australian Biography, Film Australia, 12 Nov. 1999.
Anne Hutchinson was tried by the Puritan religious and civil court for heresy. She started with Bible Study classes in her home and drew a substantial following. The clergy at the time were threatened and outraged. It was one thing for a woman to teach Bible Study to other women, but to also have men with the women was too much. The decision of the court was that she was banished from the colony. See {584753}.
Manava Dharma Shastra. This text is a part of the Hindu Holy Texts. Hindus believe that Manu was a prophet whose text is revealed or inspired.
This type of religious sexism is not unique to Islam. Fundamentalist Christians place women in a secondary role as do fundamentalist orthodox Jews although both allow a man to take only one wife. The Islamic scripture tells us that the Prophet allowed multiple wives only if the man had the resources to care for the wives and all the children. 4 is the maximum.
This remarkable advice to his followers was all the more remarkable in that the Methodists were gaining adherents by appealing to the rectitude of people and opposing the corruption of much religion that had become commonplace. With this kind of original leadership Methodists have been among the most tolerant of Christian groups.
Husayn Ali Nuri. The equality of women which he proclaimed was another threat to Islam of which Bahai was a reform offshoot. Even in modern times in Iran, many Bahai are hunted down and executed.
Husayn Ali Nuri. This quotation illustrates one of the reasons that the Muslim Iranian fundamentalists are so fearful of Bahai, a reform offshoot of Islam. For the orthodox Muslim there must be no separation of church and state—they are one and the same. The Bahai minority of Iran have been hunted down and in many cases killed on the grounds that they were heretics and blasphemers.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
At the time, the Anglican Church taught that God made people rich or poor and all should accept God’s will. Many poor would assume that there was nothing they could do to change God’s will or their status in life.
He was an overt atheist; there were many non believers in Europe at the time but few were overt. He also wrote under the name of Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud.
Here we have an example of a government that tried to go into the Religion business. They wanted Christian religion but not the Catholic Church which at the time was the only Christian church. Many of the most extreme French revolutionists had a problem with religion. They were personally believers and recognized that most French people were. But the organized Roman Catholic Church was a major ally and supporter of the hated monarchy, and at the time was extremely corrupt at the expense of the people. The nobility were also the highest officials of the church in France. One solution they tried was to have the “people’s government” establish days and methods of worship, an effort that in retrospect appears ludicrous to us today.
Thomas Michael Keneally, AO is a prolific Australian novelist, playwright, and essayist. He is best known for his non-fiction novel Schindler's Ark, the story of Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, which won the Booker Prize in 1982. The book would later be adapted into director Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Schindler's List, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
