The Kierkegaarden

“The Christianity of the priests, by the aid of religion (which, alas, is used precisely to bring about the opposite), is directed to cementing families more and more egoistically together, and to arranging family festivities, beautiful, splendid family festivities, e.g. infant baptism and confirmation, which festivities, compared for example with excursions in the Deer Park and other family frolics, have a peculiar enchantment for the fact that they are “also” religious. ‘Woe unto you,’ says Christ to the “lawyers” (the interpreters of the Scripture), “for ye took away the key of knowledge, ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.’”
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~Source: Attack on “Christendom” (1854-55)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard

“The spiritual man is able to endure a duplication in himself: by his understanding he is able to hold fast to the fact that something is contrary to the understanding, and then will it nevertheless: he is able to hold fast with the understanding to the fact that something is an offense, and yet to will it nevertheless; that, humanly speaking, something makes him unhappy, and yet to will it, etc. But the New Testament is composed precisely in view of this.” ——————————————————– ~Source: The Attack Upon Christendom (1854 – 1855) Author: Søren Kierkegaard

“There is only one relation to the revealed truth: believing it.”
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~Source: Attack Upon “Christendom” (1854-55)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard

“God’s thought in introducing Christianity was, if I may venture to say so, to pound the table hard in front of us men.”
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~Source: Attack Upon “Christendom” (1854-55)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard

“A man becomes thinner and thinner day by day; he is wasting away. What can the matter be? He does not suffer want. ‘No certainly not,’ says the physician, ‘it doesn’t come from that, it comes precisely from eating, from the fact that he eats out of season, eats without being hungry, uses stimulants to arouse a little bit of appetite, and in that way he ruins his digestion, fades away as if he were suffering want.’ So it is religously. The most fatal thing of all is to satisfy a want which is not yet felt, so that without waiting till the want is present, one anticipates it, likely also uses stimulants to bring about something which is supposed to be a want, and then satisfies it. And this is shocking! And yet this is what they do in the religious sphere, whereby they really are cheating men out of what constitutes the significance of life, and helping people to waste life.”
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~Source: Attack Upon “Christendom” (1854-55)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard