Creed of Reason
“It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”
This has been around for at least 40 years, sometimes attributed to Robert Lee Fulghum, sometimes to Quakerish origins. Quakers, by the way, were among the first to receive capital punishment in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the “Puritans”—executed by public hanging for, wait for it, professing their religious beliefs. And it gets even better:
The hanging of Mary Dyer on the Boston gallows in 1660 marked the beginning of the end of the Puritan theocracy and New England independence from English rule. In 1661 King Charles II explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism. In 1684 England revoked the Massachusetts charter, sent over a royal governor to enforce English laws in 1686, and in 1689 passed a broad Toleration act.
Yeah, those evil English bastards.
There’s a great Western movie with Gary Cooper, by the way, Friendly Persuasion directed by William Wyler, about the story of a pacifist Quaker family during the Civil War. It radically shifts between comedy and drama several times, a format we’ve become less familiar with, but it’s well worth watching.
If you have something valuable to add or some interesting point to discuss, I’ll be looking forward to meeting you at Mastodon!