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dimbear

(6,271 posts)
Sun Oct 14, 2012, 09:15 PM Oct 2012

Why is Joseph McCabe so completely forgotten?

Last edited Mon Oct 15, 2012, 01:08 AM - Edit history (1)

I've been wondering why. He's not a bad writer, certainly prolific, but just between us he doesn't really seem to be quite reliable.

Any thoughts?

By forgotten, I don't mean forgotten like a shelf of old sermons. But still forgotten.

Edit: more proof dimbear deserves his screen name. Joseph McCabe, not Charles McCabe, who was a columnist for the San Francisco paper.

Joseph McCabe, renegade Catholic priest and prolific writer on church history.

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Why is Joseph McCabe so completely forgotten? (Original Post) dimbear Oct 2012 OP
Am I supposed to know who he is? brooklynite Oct 2012 #1
I remember reading a bunch of his stuff at the Internet Infidels... trotsky Oct 2012 #2
Thanks for reminding me. onager Oct 2012 #3

trotsky

(49,533 posts)
2. I remember reading a bunch of his stuff at the Internet Infidels...
Mon Oct 15, 2012, 08:07 AM
Oct 2012

back in the old days of dial-up! It had better be worth reading when it takes that long to download it, and as I recall, his was definitely worth it.

onager

(9,356 posts)
3. Thanks for reminding me.
Mon Oct 15, 2012, 09:54 PM
Oct 2012

I used to do what Trotsky did, read/download him from Internet Infidels.

And he's still hanging around! This is Isaac Goldberg's article about McCabe at Infidels.org:

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/issac_goldberg/fighter_for_freethought.html

I always liked this McCabe rant:

If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future. Before him like a panorama moved the history yet to be. He knew how his words would be interpreted. He knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name.

He knew that the hungry flames of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. He knew that thousands and thousands of brave men and women would languish in dungeons in darkness, filled with pain. He knew that his church would invent and use instruments of torture; that his followers would appeal to whip and fagot, to chain and rack.

He saw the horizon of the future lurid with the flames of the auto-da-fe. He knew what creeds would spring like poisonous fungi from every text. He saw the ignorant sects waging war against each other. He saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests, building prisons for their fellow-men. He saw thousands of scaffolds dripping with the best and bravest blood. He saw his followers using the instruments of pain. He heard the groans, saw the faces white with agony. He heard the shrieks and sobs and cries of all the moaning, martyred multitudes.

He knew that commentaries would be written on his words with swords, to be read by the light of fagots. He knew that the Inquisition would be born of the teachings attributed to him. He saw the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and tell. He saw all wars that would he waged, and he knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these rackings, these burnings, these executions, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross. He knew that hypocrisy would be robed and crowned--that cruelty and credulity would rule the world; knew that liberty would perish from the earth; knew that popes and kings in his name would enslave the souls and bodies of men; knew that they would persecute and destroy the discoverers, thinkers and inventors; knew that his church would extinguish reason's holy light and leave the world without a star.

He saw his disciples extinguishing the eyes of men, flaying them alive, cutting out their tongues, searching for all the nerves of pain. He knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh; that cradles would be robbed and women's breasts unbabed for gold. And yet he died with voiceless lips. Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world: "You shall not burn, imprison and torture in my name. You shall not persecute your fellow-men." Why did he not plainly say: "I am the Son of God," or, "I am God"? Why did he not explain the Trinity? Why did he not tell the mode of baptism that was pleasing to him? Why did he not write a creed? Why did he not break the chains of slaves? Why did he not say that the Old Testament was or was not the inspired word of God? Why did he not write the New Testament himself? Why did he leave his words to ignorance, hypocrisy and chance? Why did he not say something positive, definite and satisfactory about another world? Why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven into the glad knowledge of another life? Why did he not tell us something of the rights of man, of the liberty of hand and brain? Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and todoubt?

I will tell you why. He was a man, and did not know.

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