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 Hovamol: 38 Away from his arms in the open field A man should not fare afoot; For he never knows when the need for a spear Shall arise on the distant road. Hovamol: 59 He must early go forth who fain the blood Or the goods of another would get; The wolf that lies idle shall win little meat, Or the sleeping man success. Svipdagsmol: 13 Then eighth will I chant thee, if ever by night Thou shalt wander on murky ways: Yet never the curse of a Christian woman From the dead shall do thee harm. Eric Joyce, MP Falkirk: Britain fights; Germany pays; France calculates; Italy avoids. The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: Absurdity n: A statement of belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. Bigot n: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion you do not entertain. Inadmissible adj: Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be trusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceeding before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the Scripture are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long dead whose identity is not clearly established and who are not known to have been sworn in any case. Under the rules of evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law. It cannot be proved that the battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was such a person as Julius Caesar, such an empire as Assyria. But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can be easily proved that power and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. Caractacus, king of the Catuvellauni: Alas that a people so wealthy and luxurious can envy me my humble home in Britain! Pope Paul VI: Wherever in the Church, even in the most difficult and extreme fields, in the crossroads of ideologies, in the front line of social conflict, there has been and there is confrontation between the deepest desires of the human person and the perennial message of the Gospel, there too, there have been, and there are, Jesuits. |
