Sunday, April 17, 2011

Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: 'Pantheist Lincoln would be unelectable today, at the Independent:
A three-page letter highlighting the 16th president's unconventional relationship with the Almighty has just been put on sale. It offers a possible insight into why he was never baptised, did not attend a church and, in defiance of political protocol of the era, would refuse to publicly discuss his spiritual beliefs. Such was his reluctance to embrace piety that, if he were standing for office today, there is a good chance he would be unelectable.
The letter was written by William Herndon, a legal partner and close friend of "Honest Abe" in 1866, a year after Lincoln had been assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. And while the letter is at pains to stress that Lincoln did believe in "a God" at the time of his death, it reveals that he took a long time getting to that point. "Mr Lincoln's religion is too well known to me to allow even a shadow of a doubt; he is, or was, a Theist and a Rationalist, denying all extraordinary, supernatural inspiration or revelation," it reads, before detailing the president's spiritual evolution in the years after Herndon met him in Springfield, Illinois, in the 1840s.
"At one time in his life, to say the least, he was an elevated Pantheist, doubting the immortality of the soul as the Christian world understands that term. He believed that the soul lost its identity and was immortal as a force. Subsequent to this, he rose to the belief of a God, and this is all the change he ever underwent. I speak knowing what I say. He was a noble man – a good great man for all this."
The idea that Lincoln could be elected then, but not today, is thought-provoking.  There are several other great links, including a story about natural gas fracking chemicals injected into gas wells, a story about drones being allowed to fly in U.S. air space, and a story about Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's emergency financial manager has suspended the government of Benton Harbor.  Lots of interesting stuff to read there.

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