I am happily surprised to report a little success which demonstrates that in spite of their efforts, wiki can still be somewhat of a resource.
"Reason is the Devil's whore ... it must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed." or some such (there are several variants) is a quote Satanists and atheists are simply mad about attributing to Martin Luther. I googled the quote and got
Results 1 - 50 of about 32,700,000 for Martin luther reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. (0.61 seconds)
That's the biggest number of hits I've seen in ages, and the vast majority on the first page were fairly openly anti-God.
Others have tried and failed to verify the quote and / or obtain it in full context (not surprising). Initially, my best clue came from
http://www.drizzten.com/blargchives/000646.htmlThe blog was closed because there were too many non-productive responses coming in.
But there's a link to a play, and one incarnation of the quote is definitely in the play.
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/abj76/PG/pieces/john_osborne_2.shtmlOf course, this doesn't prove Luther himself didn't say it. But at least it's a source. That got me to thinking about sources, and I remembered wiki's Achilles' heel: they are in the habit of sourcing extensively (and they keep histories).
So I ventured over to
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_LutherSure enough, they had the quote. How could they fail? It's hugely popular among the anti-God population - they even have a hate Luther T-shirt (link withheld on purpose) with a version of the quote printed on the back.
So sure enough, wiki's got
But since the devil's bride, Reason, that pretty whore, comes in and thinks she's wise, and what she says, what she thinks, is from the Holy Spirit, who can help us, then? Not judges, not doctors, no king or emperor, because [reason] is the Devil's greatest whore.
Attributed to Luther. AND they give a source. Their chosen interpretation, however, differs from that of their own source.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/luther/Given Luther’s critique of philosophy and his famous phrase that philosophy is the “devil’s whore.” It would be easy to assume that Luther had only contempt for philosophy and reason. Nothing could be further from the truth. Luther believed, rather, that philosophy and reason had important roles to play in our lives and in the life of the community. However, he also felt that it was important to remember what those roles were and not to confuse the proper use of philosophy with an improper one.
Yes, for those who don't know, Martin Luther spoke German. Depending on how it's defined, philosophy can be a bad thing indeed; I would call much of what passes for philosophy among scoffers a direct product of Satan, and I don't worry at all that many Christians would dispute the matter with me.
Scripture discusses vain philosophies. God had invited men to
reason together with Him. If Luther succeeded in conforming his ideas to scripture, we should not be surprised to see philosophy ill spoken of. Reason would be another matter altogether.
My point here in this thread is not that God's enemies are still attempting to smear a man so long departed. My point is that you can still use wiki to your advantage - you just have to be a little smarter than the scoffers who staff the place. Let wiki put you onto good sources, and don't forget the history feature (it's a tab-style link at the top of every article) if you need to access more sources or more accurate versions of articles.
