“The early Christians did contribute some good ideas to the world, ideas that proved important to the cause of future freedom. I must, so to speak, give the angels their due. In particular, the idea that man has a value as an individual -- that the individual soul is precious -- is essentially a Christian legacy to the West; its first appearance was in the form of the idea that every man, despite Original Sin, is made in the image of God (as against the pre-Christian notion that a certain group or nation has a monopoly on human value, while the rest of mankind are properly slaves or mere barbarians).” – Dr. Leonard Peikoff, Religion vs. America
"But the greatest of all reformers of the depraved religion of his own country, was JESUS OF NAZARETH. Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, EASILY DISTINGUISED BY ITS LUSTRE from the dross of his biographers, and as separable from that as the DIAMOND from the dunghill, we have the outlines of a system of the MOST SUBLIME MORALITY which has ever fallen from the lips of man. The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this BENEVOLENT MORALITY, and rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems, invented by ultra-Christian sects, is a most desirable object." -- Thomas Jefferson to W. Short, Oct. 31, 1819
My God is just, so I reject original sin, the doctrine that guilts people out in order to crush their self-esteem. My God is just, so I reject that Jesus sacrificed for me. Glorifying sacrifice is ungodly because self-sacrifice is masochism and sanctioning it is sadism.
“Man is made in the image of God”, teaches the MOST SUBLIME MORALITY, that of Jesus Christ. God is all-good and all-loving.
