Gotta Love Shelley
26 February 2005 by BobReally cracked up when I read this shit: Found, the lost letters of Shelley the atheist
A lost series of letters by the Percy Shelley in which he masqueraded as a clergyman to try to persuade the recipient to become an atheist has been found. [...]He discovered four by Shelley and the same number by his fellow atheist Thomas Jefferson Hogg, all addressed to Mr Wedgwood, who was a devout Christian.
In one of the 1810 letters Shelley, who was 18 at the time, wrote: “Christ never existed … the fall of man, the whole fabric indeed of superstition which it supports can no longer obtain the credit of philosophers.”
The letters were part of a campaign by Shelley and Hogg that led to their expulsion from Oxford University.
Not that I admire the methods, of course (although the attempt at conversion would have been completely condoned if made in the opposite direction). But what chutzpah, pulling this shit in 1810. Nice!
