Girolamo Savonarola by Fra Bartolomeo
Painted shortly before death at the stake in 1498
Savonarola is the case study par excellence of the suicidal righteousness of religious maniacs.
Savonarola's Wikipedia Entry:
(Savonarola is begging for a play to be written about his rise and fall, perhaps, along the lines of "A Man For All Seasons." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060665/)
The True Believer
by Eric Hoffer
Free online PDF of The True Believer:
In my view, this brief book on "the blindness of belief" is the most insightful analysis of how True Believers sacrifice everything -- even Reason... perhaps especially Reason -- on the altar of their beliefs, which they don't recognize as beliefs but assert as articles of absolute, incontrovertible knowledge.
Religion, Perfectionism, Savonarola and The Pending Apocalypse of The Republican Party (This Post, Now Updated, Was Originally Published In 2012)
Dear Giovanni,
Nothing would be more restorative to The Body Politic than widespread realization that democratic process is intrinsically compromised (and intrinsically compromising) and that all of us -- even "The Most Principled" -- are called to participate in less-than-perfect trade-offs.
Lacking this humility, The Body Politic will hurtle, ever faster, toward terminal decline. China is waiting in the wings, and as Air Force general friend, Arthur Clark, informed me: "China has more honors students that we have students.
Lacking this humility, The Body Politic will hurtle, ever faster, toward terminal decline. China is waiting in the wings, and as Air Force general friend, Arthur Clark, informed me: "China has more honors students that we have students.
Again: "The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.” Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Life is not about perfection - at least not in the mathematical, geometrical sense that Americans (mistakenly) construe perfection. ("Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" would be more accurately translated: "Be ye complete as your heavenly Father is complete.")
Life is a muddle.
And it is our station in life to muddle through to "something better" even if "better" proves (in the near term) nothing more than forfending decline. (In the long run, I envision ongoing Revelation that will bring about the replacement of humankind's "dominance-submission hierarchies" with even-handed enlightenment - social, intellectual and spiritual. The Savonarolas of our world hold sway but briefly, and then their "too true to be good" preachments crash and burn because they are "too true to be good.")
As Italo-latinate cultures well know, our lives are not about mistaken notions of "mathematical" perfection.
When imperfect people insist on perfection, an unusually large load hits "the fan."
Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On "Too Pure Principles" And The Collapse Of Conservatism
Religion and Perfectionism
Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On "Too Pure Principles" And The Collapse Of Conservatism
Religion and Perfectionism
Read the following cautionary tale of Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola, who - despite his "impeccable" personal life - brought disaster to 15th century Firenze.
Just four years after taking office, Savonarola's "righteous" rule of Florence crashed and burned, another "Bonfire of the Vanities" - this time his own. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola
At bottom, Savonarola evoked catastrophe by being "too true to be good." (No typo.)
You can only bang the bible so long - and so hard - before it becomes a weapon.
Then, as night follows day, bibliolatry lays waste to the First Commandment (and, in turn, all the rest of them).
.... if only by getting them into bed with Donald Trump, whom they elected not just once, but twice!!!
... the second time after having lived with The Grotesquerie for four years!
I believe all judgments made by people who are not only willing - but eager - to "sleep" with Donald Trump are unreliable. Such destructive ideologues are unable to make fundamentally sound judgments about any philosophical or theological issue.
The prissiness, presumption, and unfailing self-righteousness of Christian conservatives make them at least as dangerous as militant Islamists to whom they bear striking resemblance.
Christian Pharisees might wisely contemplate "The Woe Passages" - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2023:%2013-39&version=NIV
Compendium: Christian Conservatism, Biblical Literalism And The Unique Hatred Of Yahweh's Command That ALL Men In Any Town Where Rebellious Children Live, MUST Stone Them To Death
"All" My Blog Posts Containing The Word "Jesus," Or The Word "Christ" -- Plus "A Theology In Memes"
https://newsfrombarbaria.blogspot.com/2025/09/all-my-blog-posts-containing-word-jesus.html
Pax on both houses
Alan
Alan
Fr. Thomas Merton Explains -- In 16 Words -- Why "Christian" "Conservatives" Are Always Wrong
https://newsfrombarbaria.
https://newsfrombarbaria.
"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”
"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton
"The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil."
A Letter To Karen, My Perverse, Mistaken Christian Nationalist Friend In Which I Probe The Error Of Her Ways
"Commonweal," America's Premier Catholic Magazine (Owned And Edited By Catholic Lay People): "A Presidential Smash And Grab - The Most Corrupt President In U.S. History" (By Multiple Orders Of Magnitude)
Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) Cuts To The Quick: Trump Followers Are Fundamentally Unhappy, Joyless People Because They Harbor Core Beliefs That Are False. (And Although Of Less Importance, They Are, In Consequence, Desperate To Fault Anyone But Themselves)
Everything Jesus (And The Apostles) Had To Say About Rich People And Poor People
The two links below present the Red Letter Bible.
By highlighting (in red) every word Jesus is purported to have spoken, we often have a necessary antidote to Gospel interpretations that can get lost in the narrative commentary.
So...
While it can be helpful and enlightening to focus on the actual words ascribed to Jesus, there is no proof that Jesus' words have not been altered by oral tradition, scribal "insertions," and transcription error.
Please use "red letter editions" of the New Testament for the real benefits they make available.
But do not get carried away.
Perspective, proportion and deep contextualization are all indispensably important.
If God were actually supervising the literal transmission of "Inerrant Truth" in the original writing of bible texts, why did he not just "inscribe" the Literal Truth in the hearts of men.
Notably, The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah (whence our English word, "jeremiad" meaning a righteous tirade) has this to say in Chapter 31, verse 33: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts."
The Origins of the Red-Letter Bible
A Red Letter Version Of The King James Bible
A final counsel...
No understanding of the bible can even aspire to represent "the fullness of truth" without examining the writings of recently-retired, UNC-Chapel Hill Bible Studies professor Bart Ehrman.
Professor Bart Ehrman's Wikipedia Page
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