CALVINISM

From Philosopedia

CALVINISM

• Calvinism was the child of indigestion. —Robert G. Ingersoll

• The sexual act can be barbaric, brutally selfish, and self-aggrandizing, or loving and revelatory. It can be infantile and ludicrous, or spiritually exalted and profound. It can be narcissistic, heedless, and exploitative, or devotional. In the course of one person’s life, it can, at one time or another, be all these things. But the particular character of a consensual act is manifest only in the intimate connection of two minds. When it is exposed to an audience, it deconstructs as something inevitably prurient, automatically scandalous. This is especially true in America, where one of the abiding shames of the Calvinist mind is that only a Son of God can be conceived without animal intercourse. —E. L. Doctorow The New Yorker, 12 October 1998

Calvinism refers to the religious doctrines of John Calvin (1509-1564). During a sudden conversion in 1532, he was told by God that God is omnipotent; to do God’s will is man’s first duty; in Adam this was possible; in the Fall of Man this power was destroyed; humans are therefore rightfully damned; God in Christ redeems whomever He wills; that these elect whom he has so willed live by faith in union with Christ, etc.

Freethinkers are quick to note that Calvin was even less humorous than most of his fellow theologians.