You go back in time to kill John Calvin and just as you're about to make the final blow he smiles. "Oh, so you're punishing me for something I haven't done yet? Something that's, let us say, predetermined? Kill me if you want but I've already won." You pause just long enough for him to tackle you and grab your gun. God fucking damn it, not again
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Men will never worship God with a sincere heart, or be roused to fear and obey Him with sufficient zeal, until they properly understand how much they are indebted to His mercy.
John Calvin
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“The ideas of Saint John of Damascus and his supporters later permitted us the luxury of the beautiful Madonnas of Raphael, the Pietà of Michelangelo, and countless other works of passion and genius, not to mention the great cathedral façades (which often depicted Christ, the apostles, and the saints) of the High Middle Ages. This favorable view of representational religious art cannot simply be taken for granted as something natural and inevitable; Islam, after all, has never abandoned its insistence on aniconic (non-image) art. Rehabilitating the iconoclast heresy in the sixteenth century, Protestants went on a rampage of smashing statues, altarpieces, stained-glass windows, and other great treasures of Western art. John Calvin, arguably the most significant Protestant thinker of all, favored visually barren settings for his worship services, and even prohibited the use of musical instruments. Nothing could have been further removed from the Catholic Church's respect for the natural world, inspired by the Incarnation, and its belief that human beings, composed of body (matter) and soul, can be aided in their ascent to God with the aid of material things.”
- Thomas E. Woods Jr., Ph.D., “Art, Architecture, and the Church,” How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
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John Calvin and Tanya Roberts in a promo pic for "California Dreaming" (1979)
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Presbyterian is a really popular church in America. There’s a lot of members dude.
-Stephen Malkmus
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I gave up all for Christ, and what have I found? Everything in Christ.
John Calvin
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There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.
— John Calvin
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From Harold Bloom, Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?
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Purgatory is a deadly fiction of Satan, which nullifies the cross of Christ.
John Calvin
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This is what God tells King Cyrus, who, as a Persian, would've believed in the good god (Ahura-mazda) who made the light, and the evil god (Angra-mainya) who made the darkness.
In the previous verse, God says: “I am the LORD, and there is none else.” God is telling King Cyrus that there are no gods, only Yahweh. There’s no “yin and yang” when it comes to good and bad. God is in control of all the good and bad circumstances in life.
God creating "evil" can be confusing, so I’ll end this with the words of John Calvin:
“Fanatics torture this word evil, as if God were the author of evil, that is, of sin; but it is very obvious how ridiculous they abuse this passage of the Prophet. This is sufficiently explained by the contrast, the parts of which must agree with each other; for he contrasts ‘peace’ with ‘evil,’ that is, with afflictions, wars, and other adverse occurrences... Consequently, we ought not to reject the ordinary distinction, that God is the author of the ‘evil’ of punishment, but not of the ‘evil’ of guilt.
[Many people] deny that God is the author of calamities, when they befall us through the agency of men. This is false and altogether contrary to the present doctrine; for the Lord raises up wicked men to chastise us by their hand, as is evident from various passages of Scripture... The Lord does not indeed inspire them with malice, but He uses it for the purpose of chastising us, and exercises the office of a judge, in the same manner as He made use of the malice of Pharaoh and others, in order to punish His people... We ought therefore to hold this doctrine, that God alone is the author of all events; that is, that adverse and prosperous events are sent by Him, even though He makes use of the agency of men, that none may attribute it to fortune, or to any other cause.”
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